Alive
by TheChiRho
Summary: The city doesn't have to be so cold, but Gotham has been cold for a very long time. What if the fires of an uprising rise again? Will the flames always burn? For a young woman, meeting Bane may not bring pain at all. Maybe in meeting Gotham's Reckoning, there is only warmth.
1. Noticed

**Author's Note: I enjoy writing about complex characters, especially the more villainous in nature. My first work on this site was about Deadpool, who pretty much is the definition of complexity, and now, I want to write about a recently popularized villain: Bane from the Batman series.**

**Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything regarding Bane or other DC characters or settings. All credit rightfully goes to DC Comics.**

I'm a really great liar, which once you think about it, is a pretty weird thing to brag about. But I am. Honestly, I am. I pride myself in it, this gift in deceiving anyone to get anything I could ever want. Not saying that I have big dreams, no, not saying that. I don't want much. What I want is what everyone wants in their lives: security, comfort, a place to sleep at night.

Some people like to believe that I can do no wrong, so I let them, and that's their fault, not mine. I can pretend to be a good girl for a little while. I can play pretend, but not for long. I lie, and it's so easy that I almost feel guilty doing it. Almost. Okay, I don't at all. I don't because growing up in Gotham is fucking hard, and since lying and deceiving has gotten me this far, I don't think changing my ways is such a great idea.

Surviving in Gotham is pretty fucking hard, yes, but even more so in post-apocalyptic Gotham. From the climbing crime rate to the paranoia that the uprising left its shaking citizens, Gotham was still regaining her bearings. Lavish homes were reclaimed by the wealthy, those snobs who were still living anyway, and political offices refilled by men almost as corrupt as those before them. Jobs were hard to come by, stable ones anyway. Anyone could be a trash collector, but if you wanted a desk job, good luck. The big companies fell a long time ago, and any national businesses kept their distance, waiting for the coast to be officially clear before they planted their money trees again. The general public as a whole was a lost soul trying to find peace post-chaos. They tried to cling to our petty ideals of the past, those dusty moralities that were so hollow and so poorly carried out that we might as well not had them at all. They tried to go back to where things were before the uprising, before the sky fell on their pretty little heads.

Am I bitter? A little. I do not think of myself so different than the general public, the mean of the society, but I am not blinded by the fact that we have not changed. We have not grown. We are still weak and I fear that history will repeat itself soon. Am I bitter? A little. At least I still can taste at all, even if the flavor is a sour one. I'll try to think positively. After all, there's always a silver lining, a reason to raise your head up.

"You," lectured Holly, "need to be more careful next time."

Those soft hands of his clicked and clacked away on his desktop computer behind me. His focus was solely on his complicated programs and thankfully not on me because had it been on me, he would've caught me rolling my eyes in the most dramatic of fashions.

"I did fine. I don't know what you're talking about," I responded, my annoyance lacing every word.

"I caught you on Camera 2 and on Camera 4. Not your best work," he continued curtly, his fingers never ceasing their brisk movements on the keyboard. He was being snippy and I could hear the anxiety stirring in his voice. I groaned from the floor as I continued lacing my boots.

Suddenly, I heard my roommate stop typing and scoot his desk chair back. His gaze was burning holes in the back of my head.

"What?" I drawled.

My body turned so that I could look at his perturbed expression. Holly was of a slender build, light skinned, twenty-four, and the smartest person I knew. Place a computer in front of him and he could probably slip through any security protocol or cyber wall out there. He had a shot at working for the government, but then the whole system went to Hell when Bane entered the picture. Since then, Holly lost interest in the idea of working for such a "fragile" thing, something so easily shaken at the drop of the word "rebellion." So now he's a hired hand, going from small contract to small contract, and very good at cracking codes here and there. That is, if you can pay enough.

"You're not listening to me. This warehouse had cameras, and not the cheap kind. These were quality stuff, and if I could see you, then anyone else could, too."

I debated rolling my eyes once more, but in his own grey ones, I could see the light of his worry building. My intentions were not to hurt Holly for he had always been so good to me, putting up with my late night wanderings, my moody personality as well as the other heavy baggage I toted around within me. Holly was a good person, a great friend, so instead of ignoring him, I humored his heart.

"Okay," I relented as I rose from the floor, "Show me."

A sigh of relief escaped his chapped lips as I joined him by the computer, my eyes flickering to the glowing monitor. Before us splayed in four windows appeared to be surveillance footage dated to the night before. Each window had a separate camera angle, but all filmed the inside of a warehouse that I had decided to explore in hopes in finding valuables. Food, clothes, appliances, anything that held value I sought out, my hunger an insatiable need. The warehouse itself was situated by the south eastern harbor and appeared to be abandoned when I first laid eyes on it. Upon breaking and entering later that evening, however, I discovered that the building was far from that.

"There," chirped Holly, his index finger pointing accusingly at the corner of one of the windows. I squinted.

A dark shadow blurred the ground by a crate. It was there for only a moment before it disappeared with the rest of the pitch.

"Was that me?" I asked innocently. Holly scoffed beside me.

"Of course it was! I know you think that it was nothing, but I don't think you should go back to that place. I mean, cameras? Cameras. That place, in all its creepiness, clearly is being watched by somebody, and-"

"And," I cut in, "And there were crates inside. Crates full of something. If I go back tonight then I-"

"Then you could what?"

My lips pursed.

"Be caught? Get arrested, or worse, killed? You don't know who owns this property! You could totally be stepping on some gang's turf!"

"Or…or, I could have found a good, quality stash to check out," I countered, my tone level. My voice couldn't convince him, however. Holly only shook his head.

"Look, it might, but you don't know. That's all I'm saying. You have no idea. What we _do_ know though is that whoever owns this lot is keeping an eye on it, and if you show up again on their cameras, then you're screwed. You're fucked."

My body took a step back and slowly sat on the floor by his feet. My eyes remained on the screen, the shadows of my movement from the night before being repeated over and over again. One camera on the door. One by the pile of crates on the other side of the warehouse. One by the broad wall to the right. One on the door, but with a wide angle. One camera on the door…

I cycled in my mind over and over again the angles in which the cameras were recording. One camera on the door. One by the pile of crates on the other side of the warehouse.

"Well?" Holly's anxious voice interrupted.

I sighed.

"I'm going, Holls. Sorry, but I am."

A deafening silence filled the space around us. I could hear his steady breathing coming in and out of him, the stress he was feeling almost palpable as I waited for him to speak, to say anything regarding my choice to go back to the warehouse to do more digging. It was almost like a sickness, my desire to keep searching for more things to sell, to give away. But it was something that the lesser Gotham needed, a new temporary lapse of sanity through a better disbursement of its hidden treasures. Maybe I was delusional and a little insane myself to go back. I don't know.

"Fine" my tired friend at last stated.

My eyes went to his at his sudden declaration. He rose from his seat and stalked across the small room.

"You can go," he continued, "but only if you take this."

From a desk drawer, my dear friend pulled out a hunting knife. The fact that he owned the sharp, jagged blade in the first place was a joke. Holly never was the outdoorsy type, his soul sharing a relationship only with machines and modern technology. However, his father tried to get him out and in the woods when he was young, and Holly couldn't help but drag the large knife with him to Gotham from his hometown in Arkansas. I told Holly thank you as he handed me the keepsake, the weight of the knife settling in my palm.

"Take care. Call me when you're out of there, 'kay?"

I nodded as I zipped my backpack up and rose to leave.

"Relax, Holls. I can handle a gang. I'm fast. It's not like anyone infamous is out there these days…" I teased. My friend offered a light smile and joined in.

"True, but you never can tell what's out there. Who knows? What if you run into Bane?" he snickered.

I smiled at the ridiculous notion. Bane. He was dead, been dead for some time. Sure, his body hadn't been found, but it was suspected by everyone that he was a goner, lost to the underbellies of Gotham.

I twisted the doorknob to leave.

"If I run into Bane tonight?" I called out. A light chuckle left my mouth. "Well, I'd be fucked."

The city lights, in their dim glimmer, shined above me as I stalked through the listless night alone. Dressed in a pair of loose jeans, boots, a large hooded jacket, and a bandana masking half of my face, I looked like any other wanderer of the evening.

Dressing like a man wasn't my idea, but Holly's. He was afraid that if anyone recognized me as a woman then I'd immediately be subject to the dark lusts of Gotham's worst. I had agreed in the thought, though it took a while to play the part. My walk had to be adjusted, and we decided that my voice was too light to even have a chance for passing as a thug's. Dressing as a man was about the only thing we had agreed about regarding my looting, and with my childhood friend, I'll take whatever small compromise that is offered to me.

The harbor was coming into view. I left the bright lights of the street, choosing the shadows of the alleys as my sanctuary. My boots softly gave away my footfalls, but I wasn't too worried about running into anyone tonight. For the past few evenings, I had scouted the harbor, knowing what lots to stay away from and which ones were free of gang activity or illegal deals. Lately the harbor hasn't seen much action at all, which is why I chose the night to poke around. I'm not one to get involved in things that are too over my head. International weapon smuggling? No thank you. I'll stick to the pretty food vendor ships. Like I said, I don't ask for much.

I turned around the corner at the end of the alley, finding with my eyes the warehouse I had snuck into the night before. As expected, there were no lights on inside, and the whole lot appeared to be abandoned. The night was quiet, the soft sound of ocean waves being the only melody for me to dance to.

Careful not to fall into the light of the streetlamps, I maneuvered my way stealthily towards the warehouse door.

_Camera on the door_, I recalled in my thoughts.

I crouched down and silently stepped towards the way that I entered the building the other night. A side door was on the short end of the warehouse, and to my dismay, when I tried to turn it I found that the owner had locked it. A pause. I lingered by the door, the scales of my reasoning weighing in on my next move.

And this I believe is where my life changed forever. This decision. The fact that the door was relocked meant that someone knew that the warehouse was breached. There might be people on guard, an increase in security for safe measure. Also, Holly did mention how the cameras were a dead giveaway that whatever was inside was valued by someone who had the means to properly protect it. I wasn't messing with an amateur.

My lips turned into a frown as I thought on. Was whatever was on the inside worth the risk? To risk possibly my life? I remember pondering during that time what in the world would be worth such a thing as valuable as life, and my answer hit me faster than I would expect. Hope, the hope that I may aid other people left behind when the uprising came crashing down. The hope that I can feed my friends who can't feed themselves. The hope that people can pick themselves up from nothing, even if their foundation isn't the most moral. I bet on the hope that whatever lies past the door is more marvelous and worth more than my safety. Hope, a dangerous and precious thing, and when rewarded by hoping, we feel oh so rich.

Because of hope, I pressed onward with my job, digging out from my hoodie a set of lock picks. Quietly I fumbled with the locking mechanism, carefully turning the rod until each divot in the lock was switched. I was rewarded by the soft click of the lock coming undone for me, and I exhaled as the knob gave way to my turning it.

I slipped my slender frame inside, closing the door behind me without a sound. I gaped at the darkness surrounding me, swallowed whole by the pitch blackness of the shadows of the warehouse. My pulse was racing as I listened anxiously for anyone, for any sound that told my senses that I was not alone there in the spacious building. I waited patiently. Five minutes I hid there, five long minutes of muted fear. When nothing came, I allowed my muscles to relax in the slightest. As my eyes adjusted, I noted on the locations of the other cameras. I was able to recall the path that I took the last time I was hunched in the darkness by the crates, sure that I would be more careful my second go. I shut my eyes one last time before moving onward. I was about to take my first step when I heard something that made my blood run cold.

"Neredeyse bitmiş," muttered a male's voice near me.

Frozen in fear, I didn't move an inch.

"Clear here. Christ, I'm fucking starving," called another, his voice startling me as well, though he sounded farther away from my position.

_No._

It was then that I saw a small beam of light hitting the pavement about six feet away from me, followed by the sound of feet shuffling closer. I scooted myself quietly to the crate behind me in an attempt to shrink away from their presence. I prayed that I would be invisible.

"Yeah, yeah, me, too. We only have to do this one more night, then we're done, hamd Allah," responded the first man's voice.

Their voices were heavy with some form of foreign accent. I couldn't quite place a language, but I wanted to say it was something eastern European, like that of some of my fellow looters from the Brighton Beach area.

My heart was pounding inside me, my pulse making me feel lightheaded. I looked about, trying to find any easy escape as the pair drew closer and closer to where I was squatted down. The door I came in was the closest exit, but they would surely see and hear it open. My best hope was to make a break for it and run as fast as I could and as far away as possible from the warehouse. Not much of a plan, but it was my only option.

One man began to whistle an unfamiliar tune. I could hear him breathing. My eyes flickered to the door. I was about to rise. I began to slowly stand when the door itself swung open, making me lower myself once more. My heart sank at the sight of two more men entering the warehouse, their hands, too, wielding flashlights.

"Are you two done here yet?" asked one of the newcomers.

"Just about. Has the other warehouse been checked?"

"Final checks are being made, then we can clear out. The ships will be here in the morning," stated the first. Like his companions, his voice had an accent as well. However, I did notice more of a tone of authority in the way he carried on.

"Once this lot is checked over, take down the cameras and pack them up. Lock the door on your way out."

"So this is the last night?" questioned one of the first men I saw.

"Yes."

At that last word, the small group disbanded. As I watched them go their separate ways, I slowly allowed myself to feel at ease. How fortunate I thought I was. They wouldn't be there much longer it seemed, and once I was alone I could simply break a window to get out, no worries.

I let out a gentle sigh of relief, but I was mistaken to even allow myself to feel safe at all. Without warning, something was forced over my head from behind, something made of rough fabric that pulled at my throat. I was blinded as my body was suddenly yanked up from the floor, and the blow of someone's fist pounded into my stomach with enough force to knock the air out of me. My body heaved at the pain, but I was dragged forward and not allowed to recover on the floor.

"I knew there was someone here. Sıçan," hissed a gruff voice close to my ear.

I felt the firm grip of someone's hand on the back of my neck as I was shoved forward. I stumbled over myself, so lost and disorientated by the surprise assault. They took me outside, and I knew that I was no longer in the warehouse because I could hear the ocean waves hitting the harbor walls, their gentle tossing being the exact opposite of how I felt in that moment.

"Place him here," commanded one of the men. It was the more authoritative one.

The bag was then roughly lifted from my head, revealing to me the situation I was in. I was standing before the four men from the warehouse, and thanks to the street lights, I was able to get a better look at them. All four were tall with strong builds, but their ages varied. Their clothes were darkly colored and each man wore a pair of thick-soled boots. What startled me the most was that each man had a weapon strapped to his hip. All except one. He was holding his in his hands.

"Are you with the police?" asked the man with the gun in his hands.

My head shook slowly.

"You better not be lying," he warned, his eyes narrowing.

I studied him before shaking my head once more. This man looked closer to my age, with short brown hair and a little scruff on his chin. When he caught me looking him over, he raised his weapon at me. I flinched, raising my hands in response.

"Search him," the man commanded to one of the others.

One stepped forward and did as he was told, and I had no choice but to remain still as he patted me down, digging out my knife, my phone, and lock kit from my pockets. They were tossed at the leader's feet. Satisfied with my disarmament, he smiled lightly. I shivered at the sight.

"Good," he stated. I blinked. "Now we wait. Don't worry. Shouldn't be long."

As I stood there on the harbor, my life hanging there on a small thread of hope that I would somehow make it out alive, I thought about the past several years. So cliché, but I did. I thought on my teenage years, how foggy they were and how little they end up to be when we become adults. I dwelled on my job as a waitress, and how if I died, then I'd never have to put up with the rude people at the diner ever again. I thought about how messed up it sounded that I'd rather die than serve dinners to people at a restaurant. Mostly though, my mind asked if I was satisfied with the life I lived, that if I were to die in the next ten minutes, that whatever I left behind would matter in the long run. I did. I thought about it, and before I came up with a full answer, I noticed how the men before me suddenly straightened up, even the one I thought was the leader of the crew.

I soon learned why.

Heavy footsteps. Heavy and strong. Heavy. That's just the main word that echoed through my brain as I saw a very tall, muscular being approach our party. He towered over all of us, his figure bleeding confidence and power. My eyes widened at the sight, my mind barely believing that I was standing in the presence of such a ghost. The giant was dressed in cargo pants, black boots, and a dark cut-off shirt that showed off his thick, sculpted arm muscles. I could hear his breathing, the ghastly sounds of air leaving his body through the mechanism on his face. His mask. It looked cold, but not as cold as his eyes.

"Bane," addressed the head man with authority, "We found this young man in your warehouse checking the crates. I believe he is the one that we caught on the cameras."

Gotham's reckoning eyed me then glanced down to the small pile of my possessions on the ground. He bent down to get a closer look at my things, then reached over and promptly tossed my cell phone into the ocean water a few feet away. He did the same for the lock pick, but as for the hunting knife, Bane studied it in his hand.

"Such an odd thing to carry here," he stated to no one in particular. The blade twirled in his hand as he looked it over. His voice, deep and mechanical, prickled the fears inside me. It was not as I imagined him to sound like. It was worse.

His posture straightened and he stalked closer to my standing form. Before me was Gotham's most recent and devastating offender, his stare making my heart beat quickly inside of my chest. My eyes looked into his own, and Bane cocked his head to the side, as if pondering something. I broke eye contact and stared down. I refused to raise my head to look at him, choosing instead to focus my attention on the belt that hung around his hips. He was so broad. Everywhere he was larger than the average man. I swallowed.

His throat cleared.

"I will ask you one question, then I will kill you with your own weapon. Do you understand what I am saying to you?" he asked of me, his voice casual as if he simply questioned what time the buses left in the morning. I nodded at his words, a dead man walking.

"Good. My question is: Did you steal from me?"

I was so numb that I hesitated in my response.

"Answer me."

I shook my head. His eyes darkened.

"With words. I want to hear you say it," he told me, his tone more deadly in nature.

I swallowed again. It was so difficult not to tremble there in his presence, in his sheer power to control me and his men. I tried my best to sound stronger than I felt.

"I didn't steal anything," I stated.

At the sound of my voice, Bane's eyebrows knit together. A pause. He then turned to the one in command behind him, his eyes narrowing.

"Why did you not properly search this person?" he questioned.

There was no response, only the blank stares of his confused men as an answer.

"Barsad."

"Sir?" answered the man holding the gun. My eyes went to his face.

Bane's attention returned to me, his expression slightly changing. My eyes darted back to the ground, but not before I saw way his eyes had looked when his gaze returned to meet mine. He had an amused light in them.

"If you had been more thorough, Barsad, you would have made an interesting discovery," he spoke lightly.

Slowly, his large hand reached out to me. My muscles tensed as Bane pulled down my hood. It fell around my shoulders, revealing my long dark hair that was tied back by an elastic. I stood as still as stone when his hand then ventured to the bandana that masked my face.

"Your eyes give you away the most," he said softly, though his voice was still so deep and dark. His fingers gently pulled the thin material down from my face, his finger grazing my lips. I stifled a shiver.

I felt the cool evening air hit my face. The change in mood of those around us was palpable, and when I dared to look up at the faces of the men behind Bane, they looked composedly shocked. The leader, Barsad, however, appeared annoyed.

"My apologies, sir," he spoke up. "I will not falter again."

"No worries, though this certainly changes things," responded Bane, his eyes studying my face. They wandered all over me, and I squirmed when they left my face and fell onto my body.

Suddenly, his cold hand extended out and gripped my chin. I was forced to look up, to stare into the eyes of one of Gotham's notorious criminals. In the night, he appeared more menacing, and my neck strained at how much I had to tilt upward just to look at his face.

"Did you steal from me?" he questioned once more, his tone returning to the foulness of before.

"No, I didn't," I answered him quietly. I could feel his eyes boring into mine, searching for a lie. After a moment, he must've felt satisfied for he let me go as quickly as he had snatched me.

"A wise decision. What is your name?"

"Clara," I lied. "Clara Bentley."

The words rolled off my tongue so easily, but not too fast. No, I was better than that.

The large mercenary weighed my answer in his mind, taking a step away from me and closer to his men. When at last he broke the eye contact he was so strongly holding with me, he turned to say something to Barsad.

"Let her go and do not waste my time again."

With that last order, Bane walked away, leaving me breathless and shaken with his perturbed henchmen. The one named Barsad followed next, the others falling into step behind him.

A cold wind tousled my hair as I stared after the group of mercenaries. The shadows of the city began to eat them one by one, and in the distance I could see the headlights of vehicles streaming out into the dark. My legs started to carry me down the lots without much thought, my mind taking the path that they went to leave that cold place.

Before I turned down the alley, I glanced back where Bane and his men departed towards. The cars were still there, and I could hear broken voices calling out to one another. I was about to leave for home, when a distant figure caught my attention.

He was by the front of one of the cars, his height making him stand out amongst the men near him. He wasn't talking to anyone, just looking out into the harbor. I watched him from the mouth of the alley, my curiosity besting my safety once more, and I thought on what was going through his mind when he spared my life. He had no reason to. I am a nobody. Very few would know if I died. However, he spared me that night. Spared me and noticed my eyes.

Bane turned around to get into his vehicle, but not before he hesitated and sent a knowing look in my direction.

I've never ran away so fast in my life.


	2. Rightfully Paranoid

**Rightfully Paranoid**

It was so late, or early depending on how precise you want to be about time, when I finally felt safe enough to unlock the door to the apartment, the orange hues of the sun peaking their way through the skyline when I first entered the building.

"Where the fuck have you been?" cried the shrill voice of Holly, his hair awry and with dark shadows under his eyes.

My friend was waiting for me in our small living room, clad only in a pair of boxer shorts and wearing his glasses crookedly on his face. _Bless his heart_, I thought, for I could tell that he had fallen asleep while waiting on me to get back. Too bad I was too exhausted to fully appreciate him then. I stalked by without a word.

Our apartment was small, but housed both of us comfortably. The living room was decorated by an old green couch, a bookcase, wooden coffee table covered in cup stain rings, and a little television. The kitchen had the necessary appliances, and our bathroom sink was never clean. As for our bedrooms, they were a little more personalized, mine with a red bedspread and his with a white comforter. We weren't much for decorations. It was agreed that photographs on the walls would be forbidden in the case that our apartment is ever ransacked.

I began stripping the clothes from my body, my nerves finally unwinding after walking possibly the longest, most ridiculously complex way home I had ever taken. Safe measures, I took them whenever needed, and without a phone there was no way to let Holly in on what transpired that night. Subway trips, cuts through restaurants and hotels, alley walks, I took them all. No one likes to think that they might be tailed, and Holly and I established a system for such situations. Tour the city. Walk for miles. Do whatever you need to in order to confuse and lose a stalker. I was left to wander the streets and subway stations alone, glancing over my shoulder any time I felt a little too uncomfortable.

My voice mumbled some incoherent words as I struggled to take my sweatshirt off.

"Excuse me?" continued Holly. "Sorry, I can't hear you because your mouth is covered by your sweatshirt and probably full of complete bullshit," he spat out, sarcasm drenching every word.

"I said," my voice began once the article of clothing was removed and tossed aside, "that I'm so sorry that I haven't talked to you! But Holly, you are not going to believe what happened tonight!"

"Oh, let me guess, you found some _big load_ of like, fucking power tools, right? Some _huge_ _ass_ steal that you just couldn't dare tear away from and-"

"Holly, I-"

"Clothes? Vegetables? Fuck, was it contraband? I mean what was it that made you take so fucking long and-"

My hands reached out and yanked his face forward. He cursed me, but I ignored his profanities. I said what I needed to an inch from his head, my voice sharp and clear as broken glass.

"Bane."

Holly cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes even more.

"What?"

"Bane," I repeated, my voice struggling to remain calm. "He was there, Holls. I saw him! I saw him at the harbor."

At that, I had all of Holly's attention, his anger a near forgotten memory. A grin slowly spread across my face as his grey eyes widened and the information sunk in. A second later, Holly was smiling, too.

"You're shitting me."

I shook my head.

"You're fucking shitting me! Are you for real?"

My eyes rolled as I let him go.

"Holly, yes! Yes! I saw him! And he's massive, Holly! So huge. Like, way taller than you, and he's really buff, and oh my God…I've never felt so insignificant in my entire life!"

His hand waved before me, brushing away my excited words.

"Okay, okay. Start from the beginning. Shit, what happened?"

So I did. I started at the beginning. I told him of the musty warehouse, the darkness, the locked door, and of the many crates piled high and wide. I told him of the henchmen and their accents, their weapons, and their serious demeanor. I told Holly of the bitter chill I felt while standing outside with a bag on my head, the palpable tension in the air as the men waited for their leader to appear. And then I described him, Bane, his girth, his metallic voice, the way I had to strain my neck to look at his face, and the intensity of those eyes of his. I told of how he discovered that I was female, how composed Bane was at learning my gender, and how the masked mercenary made the strange decision to not kill me, to not gut me alive with my own blade. I spoke of how Bane simply walked away, how easy it seemed for him to spare my life.

When I was through with my tale, Holly asked me to go through it all again, each and every part. I did as requested, still as animated as the first time, and when I ended my second telling Holly said nothing to me. We both sat in the living room in silence, in awe of the fact that something we had joked about a few hours ago, something so unfathomable, was in fact a scary reality: Bane was alive and well, and I met him.

"Whose name did you give them?" Holly sighed.

"Clara Bentley's," I yawned tiredly. I heard a chuckle beside me.

"Oh Clara. Poor thing. What did she do to you again?"

"That bitch took my backpack and tossed it down the storm drain."

"What year was that?"

"9th grade."

"Ah. Well, karma's a bitch."

"So was Clara."

Holly laughed again.

My nerves finally relaxed having told Holly my intense story. I then took in a breath and rose from the couch.

"What's your next move, rabbit?" yawned Holly with his arms stretched above his head.

"Take a shower, nap, and then meet Hector at Garcia's," I called over my shoulder.

"Sounds bueno. Tell him 'hi' for me!"

By noon, Garcia's is a mad house. No, Hell. Hell would be a more accurate description. Multitudes of people flocked there, whether it was to eat or to discuss the gossip of the day. Sure the food was excellent, but the popularity stemmed mainly from the fact that Garcia's was a haven for under-the-table dealings of God knows what. Cock fighting, money scams, name your crime it most likely was birthed with the help of Garcia's margaritas or house special. The police knew what went down, but no matter how many times they would investigate, someone would either pay 'em off or the business conducted there would be covered up thanks to a tip by one of the restaurant's lookouts.

Dressed in a pair of dark jeans, boots, red scarf, and a brown leather jacket, I scrambled through the murky front glass door, ignoring the waiting line completely and entering into the dining area. I chose the sole empty spot at the bar area as my destination despite the angry catcalls from the costumers that I cut, and promptly ordered a Shirley Temple when I sat down.

As I waited for my drink, my attention looked to a soccer game playing on a small television behind the bar. When my Shirley Temple came I idly sipped from the black plastic straw, sucking down my sugary drink as I kept up with the score. I was so engrossed in who was winning that I barely noticed how quiet the restaurant around me suddenly became. Gone was the white noise of people chattering about, and after glancing over my shoulder, I saw that there was no one inside Garcia's but me. My loneliness was short lived, however, for a moment later I was joined by four men with bandanas masking the lower portions of their faces, skin littered with tattoos, and each armed with a gun at his hip.

"It is nice to see you play the part of a woman for a change," drawled a raspy voice.

My eyes shifted in the direction of the sound. A tall man clad in a brown coat, faded ripped jeans, boots, and a knitted grey beanie on his head strolled inside. Even with the scars that lined his tanned flesh I was able to tell that he was genuinely pleased to see me. You could only see it in his eyes though, for the man never smiled.

"Hola, Hector. Nice to see you, too."

The man gave me an acknowledging nod and sat beside me at the bar. Two seconds later, a waiter emerged from the kitchen with three hot plates of Mexican food and set them in front of Hector. The waiter then waited for me and I gave him my order, dismissing him afterwards.

"You look tired," commented Hector, his voice glazed in his Spanish accent.

"I am. I've been very busy lately," I answered. He nodded slowly before lowering his head and taking a bite from his meal.

For a while, we said nothing. That's how our meetings usually went. I simply would watch Hector eat for a major part of the meeting, knowing better than to interrupt the leading underground narcotics dealer in all of Gotham from his meal.

The weathered soul before me knew more about the drug business than anyone, and he had the respect of almost every criminal in the city. Those whom Hector employed gladly bowed to his whim, working late hours and bussing morphine and heroine all over Gotham and overseas. Quiet, calm, Hector wasn't like the stereotypical head honcho of the underworld. He didn't take to wearing fancy silk shirts or driving expensive cars. He kept his presence humble, and I think that's why people respected him so much. He and his wife owned a small apartment like everyone else, and his kids went to the local public school. If you didn't dwell in Gotham's underbelly, Hector would appear like any man trying to make it in the fallen city around him. Hector was like everyone but not, and for that, I greatly appreciated him as my mentor.

But I knew better than to be the first to speak up, especially when he was eating. Hector valued respect more than anything on the planet, and despite his peaceful nature, he isn't one to ever trifle with. Crossing Hector was a widely known mistake.

My meal arrived about five minutes later, and I began eating with him. Halfway through my plate of taco salad, I heard Hector's dry voice finally clear.

"There is great talk of a new neighbor in the neighborhood," he spoke quietly. I swallowed my bite.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Mhm," he hummed. "Mercenary garbage. Doesn't sound good."

My fork hesitated. I then felt the hard gaze of my mentor staring me down beside me.

"What do you know? What do the Rabbits know?" he pressed.

Rabbits. Behind any minor looting project in Gotham, you could expect to find members of Rabbits busy at work. Rabbits is the underground thievery network of Gotham City, a widely known yet hard to track band of thieves bent on finding and distributing goods to those who need it. Resourceful, quick, and plenty in numbers, Rabbits became active in the field after Bane's uprising. Two years later after the uprising fell, there has been more need for basic living goods and wears than ever, thus laying the foundation for an organization like Rabbits to find consumers and reasons to do what we do best, which was to take and spread amongst the masses. With members in every borough, looters are excellent in keeping each other in the loop of all that goes on in the lives of the populace. Being a member myself, I liked to swap information from time to time with Hector, a sort of unspoken deal we established sometime after we had met so long ago.

His direct questions always bothered me for I did not like to lie to Hector. Hector was like family, but at the same time I knew that he wouldn't share with me every detail of Gotham's workings. I decided to always keep a little in the dark, not too much, but enough to feign vulnerability. I chose to focus on the Rabbits point of view, steering away from what I experienced the night before.

"Nothing much. The last I heard was the normal, angst teenagers stuff, and you know that hardly qualifies as gang activity, much less mercenary affiliation. I haven't spoken to anyone else yet though."

Hector nodded his head slowly, his mind clearly thinking on something else. I waited while holding my breath.

"There is talk of uprising," he at last stated to me. I exhaled quietly.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Hector's dark brown eyes stared at my face, holding my attention firmly.

"There is talk of Bane, ladrona."

I feigned shock, letting my mouth open just enough to make it appear that I heard the news for the first time.

"You've seen him?" I asked, but Hector only shook his head.

"Not with my own eyes, but the rumors of his coming won't stop flowing."

I glanced down at my plate then back to Hector's face.

"Wow, that changes things," I blurted. Hector merely shrugged his broad shoulders.

"Perhaps," he breathed. "For now, they are rumors, empty assumptions. Gossip poisons reason, so I won't believe until someone sees him with his own eyes and reports to me about it. I can only hope that if such a rumor is true, that he plays by the rules for a bit, but I expect that his return to Gotham only means one thing: chaos is coming. A new storm."

Hector then rose from the bar stool. The armed men straightened up as he started walking towards the door. I followed, my mind distracted. Before he left, Hector stood idly by the front entrance, the sounds of the outside world murmuring through the open door. I waited.

"Be careful, niña," Hector warned me. "I would hate to hear that you ran into that masked man late at night in the alleys. He isn't one that lets people go."

"Yes, sir," I answered.

He turned to leave, but hesitated. I frowned.

"Oh, and by the way, my men picked up on a man following you a few blocks back. He was _encouraged_ to find somewhere else to wander, but I suggest you take a long way home. Do you need a firearm?"

I shook my head, too overwhelmed to think straight. Still, Hector commanded something in Spanish to one of his guards, and the guard relinquished his side arm to me without a word.

The door chimed loudly as Hector and his men left Garcia's. I stood still, my feet planted on the tiled floor as I thought on how quick someone had caught wind of Bane's presence in Gotham. Sure, Hector had more power than most everyone I knew, and he would have the ability to access that information faster because of his resources. What made me nervous though was that I knew before Hector. It wasn't simply gossip. It was fact. I knew what docks Bane had used to ship whatever that was in those crates. I knew that he was transporting heavy loads of God knows what into the city. I knew.

That tingling feeling of being watched suddenly flooded my being, and I stalked out of Garcia's and down the street at a quick pace. My mind went to what Hector said about a person following me, making me turn and suddenly take the stairs down to a subway platform. The minutes felt like hours as I waited for the subway train to arrive, my eyes studying each and every human being near me on the platform's filthy floor.

I'm not one to lose my head. I pride myself in being able to take a breath in and out and get back to work, not letting my petty fears get the best of me. Gotham is a motherfucker, not meant for the weak at heart to even attempt to survive in, and as I said earlier, post-apocalyptic Gotham was the worst. The ashes were still being swept up, and it was a miracle that we had power going on in all of the subway system's cars at all. Still, meeting Bane did something to my conscious, stirring within me some new, fresh fear, a frightening feeling that I couldn't quite describe. Maybe it was simply meeting a person that big, that tall, but that felt too simple of a reason. I've seen large men before, even ran away from a few. No, it was something different, something else.

My brain pondered this when at last the train arrived. The doors opened and I gladly stepped inside the transportation vehicle. My hand reached up and gripped one of the leathery handles from the ceiling, my body slowly relaxing as I waited for the doors to close. I stared at the shiny side window before me, taking time for my eyes to absorb what I saw.

Looking at my reflection, I saw a young woman with long dark brown hair, an olive complexion, and deep, green eyes. She had an athletic build, strong and slender thanks to her time running with Rabbits and a life toughened by Gotham's impoverished lower class. A thin scar cut through my left eyebrow caused by something that's hard to talk about. I stared at it longer than the rest of me. My eyes flickered over my appearance, noting on how tired I still appeared despite the nap I took earlier. Overall, I was mildly anxious and wanting nothing more than to go home and sleep, to pretend for a moment that my life was boring and normal. I sometimes day dream that I am living somewhere sunny and warm, that I didn't know how to break into a car or how to break a deadbolt lock. I dream that most of my friends weren't illegal immigrants from various countries, or criminals, or strippers, or ex-cons, or prostitutes. I dream that I know only doctors and school teachers, that I sip tea and read classic literature regularly. Such a lovely dream that is, to pretend that all I was consisted of waitressing and my funny roommate. So easy, so pretty, that wish.

That wish quickly faded from my mind when the next occupant of the train hopped on and the doors hissed shut behind him. My pulse quickened at the sight, cursing my luck to the highest degree.

Joining my reflection was the reflection of the authoritative man from the harbor, his blue eyes icy and confident in successfully startling me. _Barsad_, I remembered. Yes, that was his name. That's who it was, and he was beside me in broad daylight, standing straight with his arms crossed and wearing the tattered clothes from when we first met. Seeing him during the day provided a better view, and I saw that his face was graced with an aged seriousness that only the harshness of the world can offer, and a light layer of scruff from lack of shaving. He smelt of burnt cigarettes, and his lips were smirking in the slightest as he picked me apart with his staring, doing the same to me as I was to him.

"Hello, Clara," he spoke coolly. My lips pursed.

"Hello," I replied, my voice sounding just as calm.

Barsad's expression changed slightly, giving me a shadow of a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"You see, that's funny," Barsad stated, his accent dancing on his tongue.

"Oh?" I replied, quirking an eyebrow in mock interest. His smile widened.

"It is, isn't it? Funny, I mean, because if I am not mistaken, your name is not Clara."

My anxiety returned.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked.

"Ah, yes, we are. We visited her last night, the real Clara Bentley, now Clara Hainsworth. She's married and blonde, and very much not you."

"Well, that's stupid that you had to go all the way out there to see for yourself. You know they have technology these days where a person's name actually pulls up a picture of that person, too. I mean, it's almost 2014. You guys better catch up."

At my snarky comment, Barsad's amusement dwindled.

"You are not very wise to be talking to me like that," he warned, his tone mildly bitter.

"Sorry, but I learned a long time ago that just because someone sounds polite that it doesn't mean that they aren't the scum of the earth."

He blinked, his mouth slightly open at my audacity.

"I wear my psychological abuse well," I added.

My eye contact tore away from his to get a quick look at my surroundings. An old man in a grey sweat suit was reading a Bible in a seat a little ways from where I stood, and a young couple sat talking to one another in hushed voices behind him. Other than them it was just Barsad and I, and my lips pursed once more as I thought of an escape plan. The mercenary blocked my path to the other car, so that option was out. In my coat was the weapon that Hector generously gave me at the restaurant, but then was not the right time to use it. I had to wait to be away from the public's eye. I had no choice but to wait for the car to stop.

I turned to face Barsad directly.

"What do you want?" I asked, my eyes boring into his. His brown eyebrows rose once more at my boldness.

"Bane simply wants to talk. He doesn't like it when he is lied to," Barsad answered plainly.

My mouth turned into a cheery, fake smile.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that."

His head cocked to the side.

"I highly doubt that, and there is no need to apologize to me. Bane is the one bothered by your lies, not I. Maybe he'll forgive you when you apologize to him and mean it in person," responded the mercenary.

"That doesn't sound like the Bane I hear about," I began. "Based on what I've heard, Bane has zero feelings whatsoever, but for your sake, I'll humor the thought. What if I don't want to come with you? I'm a little tired."

"Oh," the man started in a whisper. His form took a step closer to me. My jaw clenched. "There is no 'what if' in this situation, dearie, and you better get rid of that attitude if you want this to go down smoothly."

My body swayed gently as the subway car slowed. Out the window I could see the platform of the subway station, its fluorescent glow a beacon for my freedom. Barsad caught my look, his body tensing as well when my eyes returned to meet his dark stare.

"Be wise, devojčica," he purred. My eyes narrowed as the car stopped. A deep anger stirred and boiled in my bones.

"I don't know what little shack you crawled out from, but you're a joke compared to what I've had to put up with growing up in this hell hole. I know some Serbian words, too, and I am no little girl, stidnica," I spat back.

Time seemed to slow, the seconds stretching and creating a void for the next series of actions to fall into. I saw the flicker of fire that sparked in Barsad's eyes at my insult, the way his lips twitched to deliver something poisonous right back at me. But before his words were released from his mouth, the old man reading the Bible cut in between us to leave, his body blocking me from Barsad for that one moment in time as the subway doors hissed open. The spark in Barsad's eyes dimmed as he saw my next move flit across the windows of my mind. However, it was too late for him to do anything about it.

With great force, I shoved the old man into Barsad, turning on my heels right after and exiting the subway car. Barsad yelled after me as he became caught in the school of boarding passengers, but I did not dare look over my shoulder as I sprinted across the platform and up the station's filthy steps.

It wasn't until I was topside and crossing the street did I look back, discouraged to see the foreigner hot on my heels and focused. He smirked at my anxiety, but I pressed onward, my legs burning as I increased my speed and sprinted faster down the busy block. I knocked over anything that I could touch, sending bicycles and people in his way, but no matter what I threw in his path, Barsad kept up with me. I realized then that I needed more of a strategy and that simply outrunning him was not going to fly at all for a game plan.

My eyes took to my surroundings, looking for anything familiar to tell me what part of the area I was in. Rabbits know their boroughs, their landmarks, and praise Jesus Christ I recognized one, a broken coffee shop sign being the exact one that I needed in that moment.

I turned and crossed the street, almost getting hit by a car in the process. I stumbled onto the pavement as I dodged the vehicle, regaining my footing and continuing my escape a moment later. As the horn of the angry driver blasted behind me, I made a quick left move into an alley way. Prayers floated up from my mind, the hope of getting out of the situation festering inside my chest as my sore limbs carried me farther into the depths of the alley. Barsad's steps echoed behind me as I ducked under a hanging rail and made one final turn at a "Do Not Park" sign. As expected, the path ended there, a tall chain-linked fence standing at the alley's end.

My lungs were on fire as I heaved in and out hot breaths of air. As I stood at the dead end, I let my eyes finally look at my pursuer, his breathing heavy but not sounding as laborious as mine. Sweat glistened off his brow as he glared at me, but even from the distance from which I stood, I could sense that he was so sure of himself, that I was done for. He was even able to let out an airy laugh.

"You run all this way to take me to a dead end?" he huffed. "And here, I thought that you were a smart girl!"

I said nothing in return as Barsad sauntered over. His smile vanished.

"Mouthy, but smart. Too bad that I was wrong," Barsad added darkly.

Since he was still far off, I took the opportunity to reach for my weapon. My heart then stopped. Frantically, I reached into the pocket where Hector's gun was meant to be, but there was nothing. Empty, full of nothing but air, the pocket held no value, no safety at all. My mind then flitted to when I fell in the street, a costly setback that cost more than simply distance. I clinched my eyes shut, hating that I didn't even feel the gun slip off my person. When they reopened, Barsad was only a few feet away. Cursing myself, I masked my anxiety once more, my expression blank and eyes empty.

"I admire your composure," Barsad offered. I frowned at the random compliment.

"Thanks. You run fast," I replied back.

His face twisted into that of confusion, his eyebrows knitting together and his mouth forming a firm line.

"There is something different about you. You are very odd."

"I am," I agreed. "I'm probably the weirdest person you'll ever meet."

My posture straightened as I caught some movement in the shadows behind him. My safety net was sprung. Barsad's head cocked to the side as my heart soared within my chest.

"Too bad we won't get to know each other," I continued.

Before he could react to my last words, two strong arms wrapped around Barsad's body from behind, lifting him off the ground with ease.

"Look what I found here!" bellowed a hardy, rich voice. Barsad cursed and struggled in his grasp.

"What is it, Jean?" questioned another equally thick, and very French voice.

The owner of the second voice stepped out of the shadows behind the man holding up a very angry Barsad. He was a stocky, well-built individual with short and thick, wavy brown hair and an equally thick brown beard. You couldn't see all of his face though, thanks to a knitted orange scarf that shielded the lower portion, but even with half his face covered Beau appeared to be in his late twenties and jovial.

His brother, Jean, mirrored Beau exactly in appearance, which made sense considering that they were identical twins. The Bon Jour Brothers, their name christened to them due to the fact that they're French and the way Beau Jean sounded together, were somewhat obnoxious, never taking much seriously, even their roles as looters in Rabbits. Still, they got the job done neatly, and who could really complain if they did their job well and still managed to have a little fun while doing it.

"Ah, a little mouse!" cried Jean, his blue eyes lighting up.

"What should we do with a little mouse?" asked Beau as Barsad thrashed in his strong hold.

"Let go of me!" Barsad snarled.

"Eh, let it sleep a little."

"Good idea, brother."

With hardly any effort at all, the brawny Frenchman twisted his thick arms around Barsad's neck, enforcing the sleeper hold. Barsad, despite his best efforts to resist, fell prey to the hold's purpose, unconscious in a matter of seconds. He was then promptly dropped to the musty alley floor without any consideration.

"Who is this man?" asked Jean, his brown eyes studying his appearance on the ground.

"His name is Barsad," I responded dryly as I walked closer to my companions. "He was following me."

Both men nodded at this, then one spoke up.

"Ah, well, at least now he knows not to mess with a stray Rabbit," commented Jean proudly.

"What is he? I've never seen his face before," asked Beau.

"Mercenary," I sighed.

"Ah, you mean déchets," Beau clarified.

"Sure, whatever. Let's get out of here before someone sees us."

They agreed, leaving Barsad in a nearby dumpster and taking me down the alley a ways. I was led to a small garage, and in it was the brothers' old, black Jeep. As the engine roared to life and I sat in the backseat, my eyes wandered down where I almost could've been kidnapped. I saw the dumpster in which we left Barsad unconscious, a green blur as we whizzed by and plowed through the narrow alley ways. The brothers sung along to the radio in unison, their spirits high and full of laughter. I wanted to join them in their merriness, but I was held down by the notion that I was being pursued by one of the most dangerous men that Gotham has ever experienced.

The big question was why. He had let me go. I was free to live another day, and I assumed that that would be the end of it. I have no interest in whatever Bane is up to. He can do whatever, fine by me.

"Hey," a voice interrupted my thoughts. I raised my head to look up at Jean's waiting face.

"What?"

"What did you do to get a mercenary on your ass?"

I sighed and took in the sight of the Gotham City skyline.

"I have no fucking idea."


	3. Precognition

**Precognition**

The setting sun ushered out the calm stillness of the day, washing over the blues and whites of day time with the excitement of a new night. The atmosphere was finger painted a mixture of fiery reds and oranges, blending them smoothly with a deep, deep violet and creating a blaze, as if the sky was on fire. As I sat in the back seat of the Jeep, my arms spread out and my head tilted up towards the heavens, inside me stirred a familiar sense that my life was going to change. I had this feeling of something new seeping into my being, an itch, and though I've felt it before, then in the Jeep I felt it more than ever as I traveled with my companions towards the fringes of Gotham City.

Two weeks had come and gone faster than I had expected them to. Laying low was my best option for safety, but after so much down time and days lounging around the Brothers' waterfront loft, one can't help but become antsy. I missed the freedom, the hype of independence. I missed the smells of the harbor, the salty air and the hushed sounds of Atlantic waves. I missed the rude hiss of the subway stations, the cool rush of passing taxis on the surface, and the blur of faces of strangers that I will never meet in this great shell of a metropolis. I missed it all quite dearly, and I was done hiding. My paranoia had ebbed by day two, replaced by boredom and a longing to carry on with Rabbits business. I was so desperate for stimulation, I even thought about waitressing, though I doubt my boss at the restaurant believed Holly's phone calls saying that I was sick for a whole two weeks.

Plagued with a sense of lost purpose, it was no wonder I grew franticly excited when I heard that there would be a Rabbits meeting. My friends were hesitant to let me ride with them, and it took a lot of begging, but Beau and Jean at last conceded and I was allowed to finally taste a dose of what my life was like before the evening I went to the harbor.

"Wake up. We're almost there," said Jean from the driver's side.

Rubbing the drowsiness from my eyes, I looked up at the road ahead of our car. A faint beacon of light shined from a small camper's lantern on a street corner, standing out against the bluish grey of the concrete jungle around it. That's all you could see through the blackened pitch of that part of the city, the area that was still littered with chunks of cracked concrete and old, solemn dust.

"They still haven't replaced the streetlamps down here yet?" I said. "Shit."

"Ha, I'd be surprised if they ever do," muttered Beau in agreement.

The small lantern was sitting at the black mouth of an old parking garage. Musty and cavernous, the opening to the hideout ate us whole, the headlights of the Jeep being the only thing preventing us from running into any abandoned vehicles and more mounds of debris. Jean skillfully steered us through and below to another level of the garage, the world about us becoming colder with each turn. I began to doubt the coordinates we were given until I saw the gleam of more light up ahead.

"'In another moment down went Alice after it," quoted Beau quietly as our car crawled over a curb. "Never once considering how in the world she was to get out again'."

The second lowest level of the garage was flooded with golden light, bringing a smile to my face as we passed through in the Jeep. Above our heads were colorful Chinese lanterns, strung to the hard ceiling by thick cables and making a line for us to follow. The bright pinks and yellows were laughable, a sort of joke to find something to innocent in a place like this.

Moments later, figures began emerging from the shadows, coming to the light like gnats to a light bulb. Rabbits of various ages, worn men and women of thievery, walked along the road on which we travelled, their eyes raising to stare at our vehicle. Some called out words of salutation, the warmth of my underground brotherhood raising my spirits high. They trekked towards our final destination together in a sort of migration, all dressed in layers of dark, neutral colors, with scarves and wraps draping their throats. Most were carrying knapsacks or balancing boxes on their shoulders, the prizes of the day ready to contribute to the general cause. I grinned at seeing the familiar faces of my fellow looters, a part of me breathing again after being holed up all this time.

"You were at our house, not Anne Frank's attic," commented Jean as I walked giddily beside him and his brother.

"I know, I know, but I've been in your house _forever_. Gah, you have no idea how happy I am right now!" I told him, my eyes flitting to the piles of goods stacked all around us.

"Oh, _we know_ how bored you've been! Felt like I was coming home to some attention starved puppy every damn day."

The Chinese lanterns led the way, guiding the Rabbits to the very bottom of the concrete building. We shuffled down the last ramp which opened up to a space where the rest of the looters were already waiting. My eyes studied the shadows that danced on the ceiling and walls thanks to the barrels of fire that sat in the corners and near several makeshift benches. Several Rabbits chatted away with one another in lively voices, creating a hum that lulled in the air as people exchanged ideas of new areas to hunt for goods, or better, what places you shouldn't go to anymore.

"…then the alarm went off and we had to bust out of there, and we had _just_ begun loading, too! Ugh, we were so close, it sucked so much to get kicked out like that. Pisses me off. These mercenaries aren't much for talkin'…"

The conversation caught my attention instantly. It was being carried out between two women that were close to my age, their faces leaned close to one another as they exchanged information softly. I subtly leaned forward, too, as the Brothers and I sat on the bench behind them.

"I know right!" said the second woman. "I thought it was just a dumb warning, but it turns out that the rumors are true. Can you believe it?"

"Believe what?"

"What? You don't' know? Bane's back."

A gasp.

"Nu-uh. Really?"

"Yep! I heard one of us even saw him, and…"

A sudden jerk of my hair tore me away from the conversation, forcing me to look up into the playful brown eyes of a complete asshole. My own narrowed upon recognizing him.

"Harris, let go of my hair," I commanded.

To my chagrin, his eyes brightened at my anger, and even with half of his face masked by his faux fur wrap, I knew that jackass was smiling from ear to ear.

"Ask nicely," he crooned, pulling it again.

I ignored his words, choosing instead to ram my fist right at his crotch. My scalp smarted as he pulled my hair one last time before letting it go, but it was worth seeing his pained expression. Harris doubled over immediately, his own eyes filling with rage as he glared back at me.

"Bitch," he said between gritted teeth.

"Dick."

"Scoot over," Harris told me. I smiled up at him.

"Ask nicely," I said sweetly.

"Fucking scoot over right now, No Name."

Rolling my eyes, I did as my team member asked of me. When he sat down, Harris removed the fur around his face, flashing a mischievous smile in my direction. His blonde hair was short and spiked forward, giving him a very boyish look despite the dark stubble on his chin. His teeth were straight and white, and I would've even gone as far as to say Harris was handsome had I not known what a total tool he could be on the inside.

"No Name," he greeted while placing a large paper sack at his feet. "Other than suffering from PMS, how ever are you fairing these dark and dismal days?"

"Well, spawn of Satan," I started, my tone as polite as his, "I've been as dandy as ever."

He cocked his head to the side in mock confusion. I fought the urge to punch him again.

"Dandy? Huh. For being pursued by mercenaries, that's pretty impressive."

"Why thank you, Harris," I said to him with a wide smile. "But I already know that I am pretty and impressive."

He scoffed.

My eyes glanced down at the sack at his feet.

"What's in the bag?" I asked.

"None of your business, No Name."

"Oh, a secret?"

"If you must know, it is a gift. For my girlfriend," he clarified with a smug smile.

"So gloves then?"

Jean and Beau snickered beside me.

"Funny. It's a scarf," said Harris.

"Of course it is."

"What do you mean by that?"

"That's what you got me once, remember?"

"Sorry," he sighed. "I try to forget that I ever tried to date you."

"Feeling's mutual," I replied.

Harris's eyes stared into mine, lingering there while his face became emotionless. I maintained my smile, not willing to back down to any of his challenges.

"Enough about me," he then said.

"But you like talking about you."

"I know, but there is something else I'd rather talk about. In fact, I would _really_ like to hear firsthand how you ran into Bane by the lower harbor."

My smile vanished instantly.

"Awfully brave of you to come down here tonight."

He glowered at me, his eyes brimming with a new form of intensity.

"Or stupid," he added.

My mouth opened to speak, but I was interrupted by the beginning of the Rabbits meeting.

A man dressed in a large black overcoat and khaki cargo pants cleared his throat before the crowd of looters.

"Hello, everyone. Glad to see that most of you could come, and as most of you know, we have a new and growing issue that needs to be discussed."

The mercenaries. I died a little inside as the head Rabbits member went on to describe how the presence of this once small minority of criminals now had escalated to become more of a threat to the quaint way of life of the Gotham underworld. Though their intentions were not clear, apparently during my days of hiding the mercenaries had interrupted several raids and projects, ringing true the story of the women sitting in front of me. They even went as far as to hijack a team's vehicle the other night.

"In case any of you haven't noticed," spoke the leader, "two teams are absent from this meeting. Miguel and Erica's teams are forced to remain as inactive as possible due to the risk of being spotted by this new mercenary presence."

"Sound familiar?" whispered Harris to me. I flinched at his remark. There was no joking in his voice anymore. I looked to him from the side for a further explanation, but he said nothing else.

"They will kill you."

The last words of the Rabbits leader were followed by a sharp silence. No one moved. Death. Death was a foreign concept to what we did. There was no killing allowed in Rabbits, only stealing and leaving. Nothing else. No one has died in the Rabbits while out on a job, as most of those we stole from were vendors and not dangerous at all. We knew better than to steal from gangs, and even if we ran into them while out, we would flee rather than try to take gang members head on. Hearing about death now, well, that shook most of the Rabbits to the core. I could see that in them as I watched people flicker their eyes to look at everyone else, the light in them a fearful glimmer.

"Should we hide then?" asked a man a few rows away from where I sat.

The speaker swallowed.

"No. We shouldn't. People are still in need of basic necessities and-"

"But we could be killed?" asked a woman on the other side of the crowd.

Eyes looked to the leader, the tension palpable. The man let out a breath.

"Yes," he answered. "That has always been a possibility."

And like a hot flame to gunpowder, the crowd erupted from those words with fervor.

"Are they hunting us down?" cried a voice in the front.

"Some of us have kids!" shouted a man behind me. Many agreed.

"And what are Miguel and Erica gonna do?" begged another. "Just sit and hide forever? That's not a life, man!"

More roars from the crowd.

"And what about Bane?"

At that, a hush fell over the Rabbits, bringing to the surface a fear that was sitting in everyone's minds. Bane. I felt a lump form in my throat at hearing his name brought up so publicly. When I looked forward I frowned deeper. I not only saw the leader rendered speechless, but also the stares of those around me, their eyes expectantly staring at my own face. My eyes went to my lap.

_They know_, I thought. _So everyone knew? It was a known fact that I had met Bane and lived? Awesome._

I felt small on the bench. I shifted where I sat, uncomfortable and wanting to leave. That's the one thing I couldn't stand. The thought that someone was staring at me, much less a crowd of people made me feel so self-conscious. I exhaled to myself, my pulse heard in my ears. Was I sweating? Oh God. My finger nails picked at my jacket. I was seriously contemplating rising to leave when I felt Beau suddenly stand from his seat beside me.

"What _about_ Bane?" he cried, his deep voice reverberating from his broad chest.

I allowed myself to gaze at my bold friend.

"Tell me! What about Bane?" he beckoned. Nervous eyes wandered to his bearded face. No one said a word. He sighed in frustration.

"You all are so brave, so fearless, but at the drop of one man's name, you cower! You are afraid! Have you forgotten, my brothers and sisters? Have you forgotten what things we have done in the last few years? We have climbed high walls. We have climbed fences. We have ran away from dogs, and have dodged the bullets of the violent gangs of these streets. We have even faced the corrupt police of this poor city!"

All eyes were on the French men, and not a sound was made when he paused.

"Why?" he asked the Rabbits. "Why do we do such crazy things? Answer me! I am not just speaking to speak, but I am begging for an answer. Why do we do what we do?"

Silence fell as Beau's eyes looked frantically for anyone to speak, anyone at all. I swallowed when his eyes rested on me.

"Can anyone not answer for me this simple question?" he asked louder, his deep voice echoing off the garage walls.

"For those who need to be fed," stated Harris. Beau turned to him, his expression relaxing in the slightest.

Silence.

"For the kids down by Elm who don't have shoes and who have a baby brother without baby clothes," said another.

"For that old couple by East End whose apartment collapsed out where the stadium was bombed."

Silence.

"For those too poor to even leave this place," said Jean, a look in his brown eyes that I can only describe as love for his brother who stood so tall amongst the rest of us.

"Yes," agreed Beau. "Yes, yes, and yes! Those people, those individuals need Rabbits! And I know, _I know_ that Bane is a big scary guy, and that yes, I am sounding crazy to say that I'd rather risk my life and go out and steal some apples than be guaranteed to live another day. But that's just it, people. _I am crazy_. I am crazy French man who doesn't like seeing that there are children who have been missed by the nation's radar, who haven't been saved yet, and are starving! It burns me to my bones to see that, and I will risk my life for them. I will. And I'm crazy, but that is what I thought that a Rabbit would do in these times. Mercenaries or no mercenaries that is what I believe a Rabbit should do at these times of great need in our city. I do. That is what I believe."

His breath was heavy as he finally sat down. My arm snaked around his, my fingers lacing between his fingers as I leaned my head against his strong bicep. I could feel his pulse racing through his skin, the passion of his soul bleeding through his being and flowing into me.

"So that's it then," said the speaker. "Thank you, Beau, as always, for your words of encouragement and your heart for this. And he's right you know. You all are free to do as you please, but the bottom line is that people are still out there, people who depend on us. Go on to protect yourselves, but for those who want to remain, we will have the new jobs posted shortly. Thank you. Meeting's over."

It was slow, but people began dispersing after the leader walked away from the front of the crowd. Some lingered to catch up and talk more with other Rabbits. Many came and pat Beau on the shoulder and said kind words to him. But Beau, being who he was, shook off their compliments and simply smiled at hearing that several teams would remain to loot another day.

"Damn, Prescott!" cheered Harris after giving Beau a strong shake to his shoulder. "What a speech!"

Beau's face twisted into that of confusion.

"Who is this Prescott?" asked Jean.

Harris stifled an eye roll. I smirked.

"Prescott was a colonel during the American Revolutionary War," I answered for Harris.

"Pfft, American history," drawled Beau animatedly, "something I never will care to learn, but thank you, Harris. I will take your petty military reference as a compliment." He then gave Harris a wink and chuckled with his brother.

"Let's go and drink!" exclaimed Jean. "Enough seriousness, I want to feel intoxicated beyond my wildest dreams!"

"Amen to that," agreed Harris. "Comin', No Name?"

My mind was still swimming with what was discussed at the meeting, but I decided to join them anyway. I needed to cloud my head with something unimportant like crude bar jokes, darts, and liquor.

We were turning back towards the ramp when we were called over by the Rabbits leader to the front of the meeting area. The weathered man had a serious expression on his face when we finally approached, his eyebrows pulled together and his mouth a firm line.

"Hey, I have a job for you guys. Want to take it?" he asked. He then waited as we simply stared at him.

"Sure," I answered quietly when no one else did. I could feel the great sigh of my fellow team members, the disappointment of my team practically palpable.

"No drinks tonight," murmured Harris under his breath.

"The place is an old warehouse by the industrial district, about twenty minutes out from here if you take the short route. Inside will be several crates of clothes and winter gear. 'Sposed to get real chilly this January, so most of that stuff can be given to those who could really use more than just a sweater or t-shirt."

We nodded as he handed me a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.

"Should we expect any extra company?" asked Jean.

"No. The place has been vetted, and so far nothing weird has been going on over there. Minimal police presence, so just the usual precautions. Oh, and one more thing."

The leader then turned his head to look over his shoulder, his hand gesturing back towards a small person in a hoodie. I didn't even notice that a person was standing nearby. The person flinched at being summoned, but walked over all the same.

"This is a new recruit that will be shadowing you all on your project tonight. French Team, meet Ella. Ella, French Team. They're one of our best group of looters here in Rabbits."

"N-nice to meet you," said a small voice hidden behind a thick green scarf.

The girl was shorter than I and must've weighed no more than 110, 115 pounds. From what I could see of her face, her skin was fair and her eyebrows a dark brown color. Her hair color was unknown to me though thanks to the hood that covered her small head.

Harris rolled his eyes and glared at something far off in the distance. I could guess why he displayed such an attitude. I felt the same way at being forced to have a tag along, but I masked my feelings better.

"Hello, Ella. I'm glad that you'll be joining us," I lied, my smile wide and directed at the newcomer. I then introduced her to each member of the team.

Above her scarf were her bright blue eyes, and in them I could see her anxiety fluster at my voice. She simply nodded and looked down at her sneakers.

From there, all five of us piled into the Jeep to drive out to the location. The radio sounded softly in the car, but no one spoke. Well, not for a while.

"So, Ella," began Harris coolly, "How old are you exactly?"

"Fourteen," she answered meekly.

Though I doubt Ella heard it, Harris cursed under his breath as we drove out of the garage and back down the dark streets of Gotham.

She was so young, too young, but that's how it is in lesser Gotham. Kids get wrapped up in gang violence and smuggling to try and make something out of their lives. I stared at Ella, seeing a bit of my youth in her, though I like to think I held my head a little higher than the small girl next to me on the car seat. You could see it in her small frame and in the awkward way she carried herself. She sat nibbling on her fingernails, not looking at anyone as we all rode in the black Jeep together. I watched as her eyes never left the blurred city as we passed it by, and if they dared to look at me, they quickly darted away. Surprisingly, the Bon Jour Brothers said nothing to her, my guesses for that being that they had not yet fully recovered from the sobering meeting.

I decided to take a stab at conversation.

"How did you hear about Rabbits?" I asked her gently.

She turned to look at me, surprised to be addressed again.

"Um, I don't know. I j-just did," she answered weakly. I nodded and glanced out the window.

"I mean," she continued. "Everyone knows who you guys are."

"Ah, we're celebrities!" stated Jean from the front passenger seat. I smiled at finally hearing him say something.

"But of course!" shouted his brother.

"Well, you've probably never heard of No Name here," said Harris. "Considering that one, she doesn't tell anyone her name which is fucking weird as hell, and two, she's been hiding her sorry ass for the last two weeks."

"Fuck you, Harris."

"What? It's true! No one in this car knows her name, Ella."

"We do," said the Brothers simultaneously. I smirked.

"What?" shouted Harris. "Why the fuck do they know your name and not me?"

"Uh, cause you're a dick and they're angels," I spat back.

"That's a load of bullshit."

"'Tis true."

"Pfft, you know what you're problem is?" began Harris, sitting up in his seat to look at me.

"Here we go," Jean groaned.

Ella trembled.

"What? Please tell me," I mocked.

He smiled, making me cringe.

"I know why you're such a bitch all the time. I figured you out. You, madam, need to get laid. End of story."

My fist landed a cheap shot into his side, eliciting the painful response I craved.

"Kiss my ass!" I yelled.

Harris managed to laugh. The Brothers were roaring with laughter in the front seats, making my face blush even more at such an unexpected comment.

"It's true! I know it is!" chuckled Harris.

I shut my eyes and prayed for the moment to pass, but God ignored me.

"Hey, maybe that's why that Barsad guy had chased you in the alley way! Maybe he wanted to jump your bones and meeting him was simply meant to be!" stated Beau. I glared at him through the rearview mirror.

"Yeah, I can see you dating a mercenary type," added Jean.

"Oh yeah," I scoffed. "I'm a mercenary's dream come true."

"You are! You're quick, clever, athletic. You can use a knife, hotwire a car, break into a house…"

"And," said Harris, "You're just as evil and cold-blooded as them! Perfect!"

"Fuck all of you."

Ella giggled and I managed to smile as well. Ridiculous as it was, I was so happy to be in that Jeep, to have a conversation with a group of people that I loved, even Harris. It was this freedom that I had missed over the last few days, this insensible joy of belonging.

Jean's voice was still muffled with his cackling as he spoke on. "Eh, Barsad probably doesn't like you anymore. Not after we left him in that dumpster."

"Oh darn," I breathed while shutting my eyes again.

"Too bad," said Harris. "Don't worry, No Name. I hear Bane's single."

More laughter erupted as Harris and I wrestled in the back seat of the Jeep, the drive to the warehouse feeling shorter than we assumed it would be. We parked the car a block or two away from the warehouse, hiding it in an abandoned garage. Our steps made a crunching sound as we walked over gravel and on the cracked pavement, and after walking a ways, the silhouette of the warehouse finally came into view.

At the sight, a new seriousness blanketed us. No more laughter. No more jokes. It was time to work.

"Okay, here's the plan," whispered Jean. "Harris, you scout ahead and give the signal. Ad-, er, No Name, you take Ella and join Harris once the signal is received. Beau and I will make our approach from the other side, taking out outside cameras and picking locks for an exit. Sound good?"

"Sounds great. I'm off." Harris disappeared into the nearby shadows without another word, as did the Brothers, leaving Ella and I to crouch down and wait in the darkness together.

The night was quiet, and it often was during looting despite the fact that we were in such a large city. Sure, you could maybe hear the distant honking of a car or two, but for the most part, the city was quiet at night. Gotham was like a ghost, a shade of what it once was. I remember when the Joker was at large and how even then I could feel the change in the air, how as a teenager, I knew what the change meant for all of our lives. It brought a new stillness, a quiet that has remained during the uprising and now two years since those dark days. And cold. The city was so cold.

I looked at Ella, noting on how her body shook beside me. She was biting her lips.

"Don't be nervous. It'll work out fine," I said to her.

Ella said nothing, but simply looked at me with a strange expression on her face. It wasn't quite fear, but something else, a sort of weak sadness.

Before I could dwell too far into what her look meant, I heard a soft sound. A whistle, so faint that you might think that your mind was playing a trick on you. My ears listened for it once more. There. Again. It sounded again, a distant sound like a bird passing in the air.

Time to move.

My hand reached out and tapped Ella on the shoulder, signaling her to follow. We weaved our way through the shadows, ducking behind old vehicles parked by the road and behind rustic dumpsters, avoiding the illumination caused by the streetlamps at all cost.

Small, bright bulbs lit up the long face of the warehouse, creating a white halo on the graveled property. Though I studied the tall metal walls from top to bottom, I didn't see any cameras on our side, just the lights. Ella and I waited by a garbage can for Harris to make his presence known once more, and he did so by throwing a rock at one of the bulbs, the light going out with a crackling sound. I did the same, taking out the other remaining bulbs near Ella and me, submerging ourselves in the safety of darkness.

My eyes adjusted and I managed to find Harris kneeling by a side door of the warehouse.

"Got your picks?" he whispered to me as we silently maneuvered our way over.

"No. They got trashed. Why? Do you not have yours?" I asked.

"I do, but they're new. Not used to 'em yet."

Harris dug in his jacket pockets and pulled out his metal picks. As he worked, my eyes shut so that I could better listen to any strange noises that may raise the alarm. It was so quiet, as if the world simply had paused and waited, too, for whatever might happen next in our nocturnal adventure. There was nothing but an eerie silence to narrate our time there.

"Got it," Harris stated as the door lock made a clanking noise and he turned the knob with ease.

As the door slowly swung open, I took in a breath, gathering my focus in my mind. It had been a long time since I last robbed a place, and I was starting to feel a bit anxious. Not as nervous as Ella was being, her open mouth breathing very audible, but nervous enough to need to calm myself down a little before entering the chilled building.

"Hey," whispered Harris softly. Ella was directed inside by the wave of my hand, and it was just Harris and I who remained by the door.

"Which one of us is taking on Ella?" he asked.

I frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, she's just a kid. Someone needs to keep an eye on her while we're out here, to make sure she's good."

"That's sweet."

"Whatever. I'm serious though. I don't want her to fuck up some way and have to clean up her mess on our way out."

I groaned.

"I don't want to," I said.

"Well, neither do I, but you probably should since I don't give a shit."

"Okay, _heartless_. What happened to 'she's just a kid blah blah blah'?"

"Just being honest here: it's stupid for her to be out with us, and I for one, am the last person qualified to deal with some tween right now, okay? I don't want to babysit. I'll carry more shit, just don't make me deal with a brat."

Harris was being completely serious, and I almost argued with him about it. Ella had barely existed with us the entire time she was in our presence, hardly warranting the title of "brat" in my opinion. I chose the high road though, not wanting to fight about it while we were supposed to be stealing shit.

"Fine. I'll watch her, but you owe me."

Harris nodded and entered through the door way. I followed, and after one last look around, closed the warehouse door behind me.

"Lights on," commanded a gruff voice. I recognized it to be Beau's, or, at least one of the Bon Jour twins'.

The pitch around us was suddenly lit by four small lights that glowed from our heads, our head lamps granting us some vision and clarity.

"Not that many crates," commented Harris, who sounded far off from my position.

"Yeah, that is odd," I agreed, counting only four boxes in total.

There was so much extra space in that whole building, so much that our voices echoed even in whispers.

"Were there many cameras?" I asked aloud.

"There were two. We took 'em out, easy street," answered a twin.

I watched as Harris studied the labels on the crates, his eyebrows furrowing.

A voice by my ear whispered, "Do you think that this is a mistake?" It was Jean.

"No," I replied while my gloved hand skimmed the rough surface of a crate. "He'd give us an easy one, remember? Since Ella's here."

"True," said Jean.

A pause.

"Where is Ella?" he then asked.

I blinked and turned to where I had assumed she was, but there was no one by my side. Jean turned his light to shine around us, but we only spotted Beau by the entrance that we had taken to get inside, and Harris standing up and inspecting another crate. I looked all around us. It was as if she had evaporated. I didn't even hear her movements when she had wandered away from me.

At my blank expression, Harris's eyes looked at us curiously.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Where's Ella?" Jean asked.

Harris's eyes appeared to darken.

"Really?" hissed Harris. "Are you fucking kidding me? Fuckin' kids." Harris continued his profanities as we all spread out within the cold, dark building to find our missing tag along.

And from across the warehouse, I noticed it. So subtle, but when you live in the dark, you see light so much easier. A thin crack ran from the floor to the top of the far door, the opening so small and barely hinting that it was unlocked. As Harris and the Brothers looked around for Ella on their side, I began to walk closer to the far door, the thin rays of the light outside drawing me in. My steps were quiet steps, anxious ones propelled by the hope of finding Ella on the other side of the door. I found myself standing up, looking at the knob, and so slow, almost menacing in taking its time, I felt that same feeling again.

I sensed that in that moment, my life was about to change.

My fingers curled around the cold metal knob and twisted it. Pulling the door open, my body was illuminated instantly by the brightness of headlights. My hands went to shield my eyes from the blinding white light, but I still managed to see what was out there.

Three squad cars, their blue and red lights dancing in the night. The gnashing of teeth by snarling dogs on tight black leashes. A girl shivering by the cars in a blue blanket, her face pale and afraid with that same strange expression. It was Ella.

"I'm so sorry," she whimpered.

I took a step.

A crack in the air, followed by a ripping blow to my side, followed by a searing pain. A cry escaped my lips as I hit the ground, the concrete hard and cold. It happened so fast. Getting shot happened so fast.

And everything after happened so fast.

"Grab her arms!"

"I got her!"

My body was suddenly dragged through the door and into the warehouse as gunshots fired into the night air. The warehouse door was promptly kicked shut as I was still being dragged on the floor, the feeling of something hot and sticky oozing from my side. I felt heavy, and I could feel my eyelids betray me as they began to droop.

"Oh, no you don't!" shouted a man's voice near my ear. Harris.

My cheek stung as he smacked me in the face, not too hard, but enough to get my attention.

"Wha?"

"Wake up, No Name," he grunted as his arms wrapped around my body and lifted me off of the ground. "Don't get all lazy on me now, you twat."

My eyes shut despite what Harris said, but I could still hear what was going on around me. He was panting hot air down on my face, and yelling things at Jean and Beau who I think were with him. Running, yes, running. I felt his steps as he ran in the dark.

"Lights! Turn off the damn lamps!" he yelled.

Dogs barking. We were outside.

"Fuck," Harris cursed to himself. The steps stopped.

"Wake up!"

"Harris, I think she's out."

"No, no she's not! I can feel her breathing."

More curses. More dogs barking. I was jostled again as Harris started running once more.

"You guys go get the Jeep! I'll take her to the alleys!"

"No, we leave as a tea-"

"Christ, just fucking go, Jean! We can't outrun them all like this! Get the fucking car and pick us up!"

I heard how his steps sounded louder, as if we were in a less open space. Alley. That's where we were. I could feel the air get cooler and smell the rank perfume of rotting trash.

Harris moved at a slower pace. I could hear how tired he was, how his breathing was laborious and how hot his body felt so close to me.

"No Name, I'm gonna set you down for a minute, okay? No Name?"

I groaned something in response and he seemed to sigh at hearing me make a sound.

My whole body was laid on something cold and moist, something that smelled bad and felt dirty against my head. My zipper to my jacket was zipped open and my shirt underneath it ripped. Gloved fingertips probed my flesh, making me writhe as they got too close to my wound. My head felt dizzy.

Then a pause. His hands stopped moving on my body.

"Shit," he said through a tight jaw.

I could hear him move away from me.

"H-Harris," I moaned.

I tried to open my eyes with all of my free will. They did so, but they still tried to rebel against me, drooping slightly as I took in the scene before my weakened body. Harris, a blurred form, was standing a few feet away from me, his shoulders square and his stance tense. I squinted my eyes to get a better look at what he was doing, and that's when I noticed the police officer. Dressed in uniform and bathed by the weak light of a streetlamp, the officer glowered at me for a moment before returning his full attention to Harris.

"Back up," warned Harris, his voice stern.

"Look, kid, surrender yourself and your friend there, and no one will get any more hurt than they already are," responded the officer, his voice on edge.

"I don't trust you cops anymore."

A sigh of discontentment by the officer.

"We want these streets clean like you do. I don't know why you all are so distrusting of-"

"You fucking shot her, dumbass! Why the fuck should I trust anything you say?"

The officer removed something from his belt, something long and dark. A night stick.

"This is my last warning. Surrender or I will have to use force," warned the officer again.

Harris said nothing, instead lunging at the policeman and landing a quick shot in the man's side. I watched as my friend fought the police, his blows landing on the officer, but not without receiving some of his own. With the night stick, the law enforcement officer was able to deflect some of Harris's attacks, even dealing some to Harris in return. I could hear their panting breaths, the exhaustion that both men felt.

Then, my worst fears came true. In the distance, the German shepherds barked, their noises coming closer and closer to where we were. That is when Harris made his mistake. For a second, he paused when he heard the dogs barking, his attention distracted and costing him dearly. In a quick motion, the officer kicked Harris in the stomach, causing my fellow Rabbit to stumble back. The officer took his opportunity. Quickly and with great force, he hit Harris over the back of the head with the night stick. Harris's body hit the ground instantly, his body knocked out cold.

My vision blurred as I stared at Harris's still form and watched in muted fear the officer see me and begin to make his approach. Even with a poor amount of light, I could see the small look of victory spread across the man in uniform's face, the pride he felt in seizing us. A pull at the lips, a glimmer in the eye, the officer smirked at seeing me on the ground so helpless, and even with all the will in my bones, I was unable to lift myself from the chilled concrete.

I felt so defeated laying there and dying. I couldn't feel my wound anymore. I didn't feel much pain at all. My lids kept trying to shut my eyes out from seeing the officer pull out his handcuffs and secure them on Harris's wrists. When he was satisfied with that, it was then when the officer's attention was placed back on me, little ol' bloody and decrepit me. As my body began to lose its grip on keeping me conscious, my eyes fought hard to remain open, to see all that this officer was going to do next. Closer and closer he stalked to my lying form, a smirk spreading across his lips at seeing me tremble.

I watched with fleeting hope and sorrowed eyes, but what occurred next, that is what made me keep my eyes open with all that I had left.

Someone stepped over me, his foot landing before my face. It sounded heavy and I could see the bottom lining of combat boots as the person continued to move over me. The officer's eyes narrowed when the being stepped out of the shadows, but quickly after, I saw a new emotion flash across his face. Dread.

Trembling, the officer gripped the night stick in both hands. He was visibly shaken, his mouth slightly gaping at whoever had revealed himself to him.

"W-What the hell? What are you doing here?" he shouted at the stranger.

The man made no response, and I couldn't see his face. His back was turned to me, shrouded in shadow. All I could hear was his muffled breathing as he moved closer to the shaken officer.

"If you t-touch me, y-you are breaking the law!" cried the policeman.

The stranger towered over him, his shoulders alone much more broad than the man with the night stick. As the large stranger continued his approach, the officer's back became pressed up against the brick wall of the alley way.

"Don't you get it? I'm the law and-"

"Yes," said a dark, deep, metallic voice.

My heart stopped. That voice. The familiar heaviness of it.

_Oh God._

From my place on the ground, I saw a strong, muscular arm suddenly reach out and grab the officer by the collar. The poor soul in his grip writhed in complete and utter fear as strong fingers slowly wrapped themselves around the officer's throat.

"You are the law here, officer. That much is true," said the giant in the mask.

The officer started to scream, but his mouth was swiftly covered by a large hand.

"But it is my understanding that the laws in this city are meant to be broken, so just as they are broken, you shall be also."

Bones cracked. There was a scream, I think, or at least, the beginning sounds of a scream before the man's spine was severed at the neck, the vertebra crushed and useless from one firm squeeze of the large man's hand. The lifeless body of the policeman was dropped instantly, as if the corpse was a curse and defiled.

Gotham's reckoning stood in the faint glow of the city, his body a tall silhouette. He didn't move at first, just simply stared at me as I laid on the floor looking at him through tired and sleepy eyes. I was so weak that I couldn't even react when he began walking towards me. Those steps, so heavy, they brought me back to when I gaping at him at the harbor, the sheer power of his presence alone making me feel done for. When at last he stood beside my body, his powerful eyes gazing down at me, I managed to let out a small sound. It was barely above a whisper, a small and weak cry. He simply shook his head at my efforts.

"Save your energy for when I question you," Bane said to me. "I will do so when you have recovered from your injuries."

His tall form then squatted down as my eyes closed. Something cold was felt behind the back of my shoulders and knees. I shivered. The rush of air around my body alerted me further, but I was unable to look at anything anymore. I was no longer on the ground at all. I felt like I was floating.

I opened them one last time, my eyes. With all of what was left in me, I looked up at his face.

His own eyes stared ahead, allowing me to study him. Never would I have expected to be so near him, to be touching him at all. He felt so warm, and his eyes, they were a peculiar color, one that I couldn't quite identify in such poor light.

They flickered down to me, but I did not look away.

"Did you really think you could outrun me?" Bane asked, his voice rumbling in his chest.

It was the last thing I remember feeling, the way his chest felt against me, before the world went to black.


	4. Curiosity

**Curiosity**

"How long will she be unconscious?" I asked.

The doctor's eyes went to my mask again. My fingers flexed.

"Answer him," ordered Barsad quietly.

"Um, s-she could w-wake up any time now. Most likely in the next f-few hours, Mr. Bane, er, sir."

The doctor was shaking as he stood before me, his small eyes choosing to look at the mask on my face instead of my own eyes.

"I do not appreciate your mumbling, doctor, but thankfully I won't have to listen to it anymore. You are free to go. I trust that you left me her pain medication as requested?"

"Of course!" he said.

"Good. Leave me."

The panicked soul was escorted out of the small room, leaving me alone with the unconscious body of the young woman from the harbor. Her wounds were severe, the bullet tearing through much muscle and residing somewhere within her internal organs. We were able to find medical attention in time to save her life, though her rehabilitation would be time consuming.

Taking a seat beside her bed, I watched her rest. Her face was relaxed despite the trauma her body had endured the last few hours, the aesthesia serving its purpose well. As I studied her face, my mind wandered to what led up to where I was.

I am not a man of weak foundation. My foundation was laid down decades ago in the bellies of Hell, shaped by shadows and placed to set by the brutality of angry men. That is where the base of who I am came to be. From darkness my foundation was molded into something strong, something to stand on, but it was not until I was freed from the Pit and felt the sun on my skin did my core become solidified into something worth building on.

The years came and went, years of growth and times of sharpening. Like a blade forged for battle, I became more deadly with each test of strength and power, the training of Ra's Al Ghul a water stone for my vitality. Those years were trying, and I know some parts of my soul grew colder because of them. In the League of Shadows, I found out who I was, the true potential I possessed all along.

However, I was not to remain. Though Ra' Al Ghul chose to unjustly excommunicate me into the world, the edges of my being were sharp and ready to cut with a freedom that I had yet to feel. In a way, losing my sense of identity was the turning point that made me whole.

In my journey to be whole, I also learned of what I dislike. Weakness. I loathe it. What can Man expect from itself if it was to remain weak and so easily overcome by a shallow power? Weakness certainly will not do in Gotham, poor as most of it is. When I entered the metropolis after those two long years, I was greatly discouraged. As the starved wander the streets of the lesser neighborhoods, the fat upper class are rebuilding themselves and forgetting the legs that held them up in the first place. I saw skyscrapers taking shape once more on the horizon. Working vehicles chortling up the streets where shops have dared to reopen. A bitter taste filled my mouth. _They_ are the weak ones. I see them with my eyes, puttering about blindly in their squandering. Forgotten, the poor and underprivileged have been forgotten by those who have what they do not need.

So I must ask of you, what is a body without legs? It is a body, yes, but not as strong as it should be. But then I wonder, what is a body without fat? That is a different scenario, is it not? You will find that the answer will come to you easily. Trim the fat. Throw it away. Trim it with my edges because if I don't do it than all of those who died to fix that dystopia have died for nothing. Talia died for her father's unaccomplished dream. My life almost followed hers, but I lived. I am alive, and therefore must continue those dreams alone. It is my purpose. I chose it.

I am not a man of weak foundation, nor am I a supporter of weakness. That you now know. It is understandable then upon hearing that there was an intruder caught on my cameras, I grew angry. How foolish, I had thought, that a thief would try to steal from me! Even more so, the idiot returned the next evening to my storage house only to be caught by my men like the weak rat that he was.

A young man. I sized him up immediately, his slender frame and low height the representation of what Gotham City had become. Dressed in tattered clothing, I sensed the fear rolling off his person. I looked down on him with ease. There was no threat in who he was. I did not notice anything unique about the man.

That is, until I looked at his eyes.

Hazel eyes. Green eyes. Surrounded by long, dark lashes. _Could these truly be a man's eyes? _I wondered. I was uncertain. They were far too attractive. Those eyes glowed like emeralds, even in the light of the streetlamps.

I ignored my instincts, however, moving on to toss his belongings into the sea. He did not carry much, only simple tools. His blade was an odd thing to find on his person, the serrated edges and weight clearly making it one for hunting. I decided to keep it for myself.

"Answer me."

So quiet. Oddly silent. Normally, even the men beg.

When the man did not speak, I warned him otherwise. Whether he stole from me or not, it mattered little. He was a dead man. I could see his fate register in his mind as well, the realization dawning on him as he took in a breath to speak to me.

That is when my interest first began. It started there at the sound of her voice.

"I didn't steal anything," the looter stated. Her tone was strong, yet held a subtle softness within it. A woman's voice.

I remember being surprised, a feeling that did not sit well with me. When I turned to Barsad, he, too, appeared just as shocked as I did at the discovery that our looter was in fact female, a very brave one at that.

The way she stood there staring at me, her shoulders squared and those green eyes daring to look into mine. It was mildly impressive. I saw her trembling in the cold, but there was a fierceness in the way she looked at me, a rebelliousness that only the cruelty of the world can bring out. I have seen that look before, in a young girl that I once knew. Again, I was surprised by her boldness, though she did relent and look down when I held her gaze.

Curiosity. I would have been satisfied had my curiosity not settled in my mind. I found my hand pulling down the hood of her jacket, revealing a dark mane of long, thick hair. Next, I moved to the bandana masking her face. Why? I do not know. But I pulled down the material to expose her, and as I did, I felt her lips against my finger. The woman tensed at my touch, and the warmth of her mouth stirred something in me.

I drank her in. She had a lovely face. The skin was of an olive tone, smooth, and with a light spray of freckles that touched her cheeks. The lips that I touched were full and pouted as she stood before me. My eyes studied here there, drawn to a thin scar that cut through her eyebrow. I absently wondered what had caused it before realizing how long I was simply looking at this stranger. She had such a lovely, lovely face.

I knew that my men, especially Barsad, found my decision to spare her life an unlikely choice, but the girl had won my graces. I am not one for harming women, strong women that is. I respect them for the most part, and I know firsthand what greatness that they are capable of achieving. Part of me thought it a mistake to let her go, but another side was willing to take the chance and allow "Clara" to be free to steal from another person another day.

As I stood by the cars that would take me away from that cold place, I thought of her face. I thought on how bold she was to look into my eyes. And just as I was thinking of her, I felt the gaze of someone in the distance. It is instinctual. You always know when you are being watched after you endure such hardening years of paranoia. I turned my head and saw in the distance the woman who I had allowed to live gaping at me from an alley. Her body grew rigid at being caught, and she promptly vanished into the dark behind her. Gone. She was gone and I tried my best to forget ever meeting such a person. There was no reason at all for her to even matter to me. She didn't stand out. She was nothing.

But I was sick with curiosity. Who was this person? And more importantly, why did she seem so unafraid of me? Curiosity is what drove me to send Barsad to find her, only to learn that "Clara Bentley" lived in upper Gotham with her husband in an expensive apartment. This being, I was told by Barsad, was not the woman we had met at the harbor. No, that woman at the harbor was much more than she had appeared. She was cunning, knowledgeable about the streets she wandered. Smart to have a false name, yet foolish to lie to me. I had more reason than ever to track her whereabouts, to find her and discover the truth about her identity. To punish her. That is at least, what I decided was the reason for my great interest in knowing who exactly that person was. It was reason enough.

My plan was so simple and easy to accomplish, so imagine my confusion when Barsad went missing the next day. I trust the man greatly. He is the most loyal man I have, and he knows the level of standards I call for my plans. It is understandable then how perplexed I was to hear that my best man failed his job to capture a single young woman and bring her back to me. It was disheartening.

"Explain yourself," I had said to Barsad when he finally made his way back to our whereabouts in Gotham City.

He was filthy, and smelt of soured milk and burnt paper.

"I have failed, sir."

"I can see that," I said.

He averted his eyes.

"Tell me. One woman was capable of losing you?"

"She was not alone. I believe that-"

"I need more than simply your beliefs. Do not talk again unless you have something useful to tell me."

I let a moment pass between us.

"I do not like excuses, but you know of this," I continued. "So tell me, what is the grand reason as to why the girl is not here in front of me?"

His lips parted to speak.

"Be wise with your words," I said sternly. His mouth shut. I sighed. Wasting time bothered me almost as much as frailty. A pause and a breath later, Barsad then answered my question.

"This woman is not your typical thief, sir. She has many allies and has a reputation amongst the impoverished population here."

My head nodded

"Go on," I prodded.

During his travels in lower Gotham, he saw much. An international narcotics dealer. Two tall French men, the men who overcame him. How strange to think that she would be amongst such company. She was supposed to be an easy catch, then again, I should have stopped assuming things about this person by that point. No matter.

"Is that all you have to offer, Barsad?"

He said not a word, but I allowed him some time to remember.

"No," he at last said. "She is a part of some type of local gang or network. Those who I asked appeared to know of who she was, but no one was willing to say anything else. It was as if they were protecting her. There is a lot of loyalty."

I glowered.

"There is no honor among thieves," I stated. "I am disappointed that a woman was able to defeat you. Perhaps she should be at my right hand for she seems more capable. I will grant you more men to aid you. Just find this person and bring her to me. That is all."

He turned to leave, but I opened my mouth again.

"Barsad?"

Barsad faced me obediently.

"Do not fail me again."

He nodded.

"Of course, sir. I will not."

I waved him off, bothered that the task required so much attention. It shouldn't have, but as the hours turned into days, and those days into weeks, I began to think that perhaps this person was not an amateur. She was elusive. She knew to stay hidden. There were no files on the grid either. My men searched the virtual world for anything on this thief, but even school information leading to Clara Bentley came up empty. This looter's connections were strong indeed. Unexpected. I began to believe that she was more than I assumed to be at all.

Just as I was to abandon the thought of ever locating her, Barsad came through for me at last. The night was young when I received a call saying that she was spotted exiting a Jeep near the fringes of lesser Gotham.

Curiosity, it ached in me once more. When my men gathered to venture out in the night to snatch her up, I decided to join them. Highly unusual, but when curiosity grips you it is a hard thing to shake from your bones.

_But of course you are in another warehouse_, I thought from the opening of an alley, my eyes taking in the black silhouette of the building.

The area was swarming with police and their dogs. Sticking to the passages, I travelled towards the center of the activity unnoticed. My men were split up, but I desired to travel alone. As I ventured further into the backs of buildings, I heard noises ahead of me. I had hoped to at last find the person that I had been searching on for the past two weeks, and my hope was at last rewarded.

I found her bleeding heavily on the cold ground of an alley way. Her chest panted weak breaths, shakily rising and falling. That lovely face was looking away from where I stood, watching some loud commotion ahead of us. She did not even sense my presence.

From the darkness, I saw what she saw. A fight between a man and a police officer was carrying itself out loudly from under a streetlamp, and judging by the way the young man placed his body in between the officer and the girl, I assumed that she was an ally to him. I watched with mild interest, debating to grab what I came for then while his back was turned or to simply wait and see what I could learn from the other stranger. For a moment, I believed that the man would best the officer, but I was mistaken. He fell prey to distraction caused by dog barks, such idiocracy, and thus fell prey to the blunt end of the officer's nightstick.

Seeing that his opponent had fallen, I saw the spark of victory light in the officer's eyes as he stared at the bleeding woman before me. She saw it, too, but due to her injuries, she made no efforts to move. As he stalked towards the woman on the ground, the man smiled. He dared to smile at her as she lay dying, a wide grin from ear to ear. I was disgusted, entirely angered by the sight of him.

That is when I decided that he must die.

And I relished the fear. The officer's pulse ran beneath my fingertips as I held him against the cold brick of the city, his frightened expression growing paler the longer I gripped his windpipe. We exchanged words, but I do not recall what they were. The one thing that I recall intimately was the way his cervical spine snapped within my hand. Like how tree branches snap, I cracked him.

When I shifted to look back at the girl on the ground, her mouth was gaped open and her eyes watched my every movement. I approached her with confidence, glad to have finally been able to catch such an elusive fox. The woman was nearly unconscious when I lifted her. Those green eyes watched me as long as they could, impressing me once again that she was still challenging me with her gaze.

"Did you really think you could outrun me?" I asked.

But I would not receive an answer. Her eyes shut, finally giving in to her worn state. Even in her unconsciousness, I saw her lips slightly turned, a light smile gracing her face. I found it an odd thing. Odd in that she was smiling, and odd that I was further interested in who she was.

That same easy smile was still on her mouth as she slept in that small room beside me. Twice I considered jostling her awake myself, too impatient and wanting to start asking her questions soon. But I had to wait for the answers I sought. Her body needed the rest. I had to wait to ask her what her real name was.

A groan. My eyes brightened at the sound. My waiting would be cut short. The machine next to her made a chirping noise as the girl's body shifted slightly beneath her bed sheets, her face twisting into an expression of discomfort.

_Awake at last._

I was anxious. At last the woman was conscious and under my power. At last she would be forced to pay for her lies and her attempts to allude me.

Her body rose slightly from the mattress. The color drained from her face as she moved.

And just as she had been doing this entire time since I first met her, the woman with the lovely face from the harbor, she shocked me once more with an act that I did not see coming.

She turned and vomited on my shoe.


	5. A New Home

**A New Home**

From the dull limbo that I pleasantly floated in came a swirl of sound that reverberated against the front of my skull. It rushed to the forefront of my consciousness like a storm of pounding doldrums, a mixture of noises that flashed across my mind in choppy fragments. One by one they came. A breeze of free laughter, followed by the sharp tongues of a boisterous crowd. The light clinking of metal. Whispering words from a quiet mouth. Then a gunshot. Then voices. Then a strangled cry. Then the calming sigh of a heartbeat.

I was awake. Every cell of my being shouted that I was awake, but the words were mumbled. I was alive, but not quite there.

And I desperately needed to throw up.

Without a second thought, I rose and heaved over the side of whatever I was laying on, ignoring a sharp pain that echoed throughout my midsection. Out went the bile, hitting the floor with a gross, wet sound. I coughed as my hand went to wipe my dry lips, and with tired eyes I stared down at the mess I had made. It wasn't much, or at least not as much as it had felt like. The bile tasted foul in my mouth, but as for the rest of me, my body felt less nauseous. When I opened my eyes again to look at the floor, it was then that I noticed a dark military boot planted by the puddle of my vomit, the top of it suffering heavily from my moment of sickness.

Frowning, I stared up through my sweaty locks of hair to see probably the most unexpected sight to be held.

Leaning forward with his elbows resting on his strong thighs was none other than Bane, mask and all. He was clad in black cargo pants and a grey long-sleeve shirt, his large mass of a body sitting on a metal folding chair. His eyes were looking down at the mess that I had made, studying the shoe that I had promptly spilt my insides on. I wanted to die.

"Clearly," his voice stated in disgust, "you are still not feeling well."

That voice was so deep and was accented by the mechanism on his face. It had a richness in it, his voice, and upon hearing it I found myself startled. It wasn't a bizarre dream or lapse in sanity. The mechanical sound clarified to me that he really was sitting and within arm's length of my form, Bane, so frighteningly close that I could hear each and every raspy breath the man took.

His eyebrows were furrowed as he slowly moved his foot closer to his chair. The tile squeaked from the moisture of his boot, making my head hurt. I clenched my eyes shut at the brewing headache that was slowly making itself known.

"Lie down," Bane said to me, his voice dark and clear.

I groaned as my stomach struggled to settle. I looked at him and how he was awaiting my obedience.

"No," I said weakly as I raised my hands to grip my head. I glanced in his direction. His eyes had widened at my response.

"I don't want to lay down," I said. "Where am I?"

The giant in the chair stared at me as if I had spoken another language. Bane's expression then shifted to that of annoyance.

"Lie down," Bane repeated, his tone more stern.

I shook my head as the nausea returned.

"No, I need to-"

"Lie," he began, his hand reaching out to me. I flinched and tried to move away, but he easily grabbed my shoulder and pushed me down on the bed. "Down," Bane finished, a satisfied gleam in his eye as my head met the pillow.

The headache intensified, as did a deep, throbbing pain in my abdomen. I could feel myself slipping back into a dazed sleep as I stared at the mercenary.

Bane looked back at me with an emptiness about him, a hollow look in those eyes of his. Slate green. That's what they were. I absently decided the color of Bane's eyes as the world began to turn around me.

"Barsad," I heard him call out calmly.

A moment later, the brown haired European whom I did not have the best relationship with came into my frame of sight, standing near Bane as Bane rose from the chair. They exchanged some words, but I could not decipher them, and I noticed how Barsad's eyes peered at something by me though I was unable to follow his gaze.

"Hey, you. You with weird voice. H-How are you s-still here?" I mumbled. Or slurred. I could barely understand even myself.

Both men looked at me, their eyes wary. Bane's head tilted slightly but he said nothing.

"He s-sucks at his job, s-so shouldn't he be, like, like, dead or whatever?" I continued.

My words were just as jumbled as the sentence before. I sounded awful. Inebriated. Yes, I would say that word would be the best description of my state. As I laid there something warm ran from my mouth and on to the pillow. Drool? Was I fucking drooling? Jesus.

I was fading fast, but I didn't miss the almost humored look in Bane's eyes. I think I smiled at that. Barsad, however, was not as amused at my question, his face grimacing as he said another thing to the man beside him. The masked mercenary nodded at his words then walked closer to my lying form, towering over my body like a monster. Gone was the humor, replaced with that coolness I first witnessed on the concrete ground of the harbor. I think he was talking to me, giving me a warning or whatever. I had no idea what he said though.

I stared up at his emotionless face as my mind started to unwind into sleep. My lips moved lazily, emptying words into the air that I did not consciously offer up. They were lost on me. Whatever it was I said though, it made Barsad pale as snow and Bane's eyes widen and look to Barsad with a question in them.

I must've been losing my mind. Maybe I was drugged, I don't know. I think I laughed a little while Bane's cold eyes returned to my face and tried to read me. Looking back, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, for in my stupor I did the unthinkable. High me must've wanted to die because with zero hesitation I allowed my hand to venture up and touch his face. I did. I touched him. Seemingly out of my control, my arm slowly raised to allow my hand to softly feel him, to explore the mask of one of Gotham's most deadly assailants since the Joker. Stranger still was that Bane allowed my fingertips to graze the metal mask, his breathing ceased as I felt the strange tubing of the apparatus. I remember noticing how surprisingly warm it was, how the biting cold that I expected the mask to have never came to my sensitive fingertips. His eyes bore into mine as my fingers left the mask to stroke his upper cheek with my thumb, the tip lightly feeling the tickle of his lower lashes. I let my hand linger there as a smile spread slowly on my lips.

I'll never forget how lost he looked, how tightly knit together his brow was, and the intensity in those eyes of his. For a moment, I believe I saw Bane for who he was. For a moment, I believe I simply saw a man experiencing something unexpected just as we all do.

My hand then fell as I lapsed into sleep, taken away from the moment that I think very few will ever get to see.

I'm not quite sure how long I was unconscious, but the second time I awoke things panned out quite differently.

My eyes shot open, darting frantically at my surroundings. I saw the space around me through my blurry vision, having to blink a few times to clear the deep haze from my sight.

I was still in the same room as before. The low ceiling above my head was made of some porous, white tile. The walls and floor of the room I was laying in were also white and nondescript. Bright light cut the shadows of the room like swords through two high windows, illuminating sharply the bed my body was laid on, and revealing to me the many wires and tubing attached to my person. They led to various machines stacked beside the bed, some of them beeping quietly. It was then that I also noticed that I was not alone.

"She finally awakens," said a man's voice.

I turned to see Barsad perched in the chair that Bane was sitting in before, though his form didn't take up as much space as the former occupant's. His arms were crossed against his chest, his posture relaxed while he studied me.

My throat cleared as I looked over the man in the chair, noting on how much cleaner he appeared since the last time I saw him. He was shaven and gone were the shadows under his eyes. I noticed that his apparel had changed as well, though I don't know why this was such a shocker. I mean, of course he would change clothes. Duh, but I suppose I didn't expect that it would ever matter what he looked like. I never expected to see that man ever again.

Yet, there I was.

"Why are you watching me sleep?" I asked him, my voice hoarse. He smiled.

"Out of all that you are wondering, that is the answer you seek?" Barsad responded, a look of amusement lighting his eyes. I frowned.

"Fine, here's a better one. How do you still have a job?" I said.

At my words the amusement faded from his face, the lines around his eyes smoothing.

"Yes, thank you for that, by the way," he said bitterly. "Mentioning to Bane why I still live. Very kind of you."

"It was an obvious question."

Barsad scoffed and shook his head. He then rose from the seat and gestured to the foot of my bed. I hadn't even seen the pile of folded clothes there.

"Get dressed. You have five minutes."

The mercenary then left before I could properly argue with him, crossing the room in three strides and shutting the only door behind him.

I tried to rise from where I laid, but a sharp pain in my abdomen stopped me. I groaned at the feeling, looking down to see what the cause was. I was still dressed in the bloody shirt I wore at the warehouse, and lifting it I saw that my midsection was heavily wrapped in gauze.

"Shit," I muttered to myself, poking and prodding at the mass of white material strapped to my stomach. I didn't dare remove it, fearing whatever mess was hiding underneath. A subtle pain ached from my motions, and I tried to remember all that I could that led up to me somehow being kept in a room by mercenaries.

_The warehouse_, I recalled.

My brain filed through all that went on that night, from the Rabbits meeting onward, trying to piece together the best picture from my memories. I remembered losing someone out of my sight, and going to look for that person. A girl? Yes, a young girl that was awkward and thin. Ella. Ella was her name. Where did she go? I was walking in the dark, walking towards a cracked door. Yes, the door to the warehouse. The knob was freezing as I turned and pulled the door open. Then I was shot.

The door to the room opened. Barsad stepped through the doorway, his face darkening at my sitting form.

"I told you to get dressed," he said sharply. My eyes narrowed.

"A little hard to get up when you had your stomach ripped open," I retorted. My hand waved over all the wires and tubing that connected to the medical machines around me.

"What the fuck did you do to me? And this shit? How the hell am I supposed to even leave the bed let alone put on a pair of pants?"

Barsad's jaw visibly tightened as he strut over to me. With wary eyes I watched him press a few buttons on some of the monitors and screens, turning them off. Then without any hesitation, his hand reached out and began ripping out the many wires taped to my skin. I winced at the stinging feeling and writhed when an IV tube was torn from my wrist. My hand went to smack his face, but he deflected it with his arm. The man then grabbed me by the forearm and pulled me from under the sheets. I resisted, but even with my refusal, I was made to stand up, my legs shaking after not being used for so long. I clenched my eyes shut at the pain radiating from my stomach. We stood together by the bed, him dressed in full annoyance and me in my wrinkled shirt and underwear.

"That was not hard at all," said Barsad, his eyes full of triumph.

I glared back with all the hate in my heart. If I hadn't been injured, I would have decked the asshole flat on the ground. He smiled, stoking the coals of my anger even further. With great disdain, I spat in his face, the saliva running from his cheek and down his chin. The windows to his soul fogged with a new anger, yet the mercenary made no move to wipe the spit off. Instead, his grip on my arm tightened.

"A word of warning, devojčica." The calmness of Barsad's voice remained, but it had a deadliness in it, one that made me shiver.

"Do not be difficult. I am surprised that Bane has bothered to put up with your poor behavior, and I doubt that he will desire to keep you any longer if you continue to become more of a nuisance than an advantage."

I grimaced at his warning. Who was he to try and put me in my place? He was nothing to me, a stranger, and one who clearly knew nothing of the bleak world that lesser Gotham has become. This wasn't my first kidnapping, nor my first run in with a big bad guy trying to get me to do things. I'm not a pushover, so I leaned in towards his face to deliver my own message.

"Fuck you."

He glowered at me for a good moment. I wondered if he was going to hit me, push me, take his chance to use force against my weakened state. I waited for a pain that never came. Barsad only tightened his grip on my arm before letting me go.

"Get dressed. Now," he said.

"Not until you answer my questions," I snapped.

"Your answers will come in time, devojčica. Simply do as you're told, or I could make this much worse for you."

I rolled my eyes.

"I highly doubt that to be humanly possible," I said.

Barsad's face seemed to brighten at my challenge. I frowned at such a reaction, a piece of me regretting my words.

Next, the mercenary called something out in a language I didn't know. The door opened immediately, and three other men dressed in dirty military-esque uniforms entered the room. The only sound that emitted from them was the faint clicking of their weaponry and the softness of their breathing. When they saw me, I observed no reaction. No surprise. No curiosity. Nothing. They were stone statues.

My lips pursed at seeing them join Barsad and me, and I looked to the Serbian for answers.

"Dress yourself," was all he said in a commanding voice. His face had become completely emotionless after he wiped the spit from his skin. My eyes shifted to the new group and back to Barsad. They then narrowed as I saw what he was trying to do.

I wasn't the only one who realized Barsad's intentions. Snickers were shared amongst the others in the room, their wide grins spreading across their faces as they drank me in.

_Oh, so now you're human beings_, I thought bitterly. I glared back at the men. They were less like strangers to me then, the way their lips curled and the cockiness of their empty swagger. They disgusted me, but seeing that I was clearly in the lower ranks, I did as I was told and reached over to the clothes on the bed.

With a new hate for mankind, I strut to the middle of the room and dropped the pile of clothing at my feet. My eyes never left Barsad's as I removed my shirt from my body, letting it fall to the floor without a care. Next, my fingers went to the back of my bra, confidently undoing the clasps one by one then sliding the straps off of my shoulders. It, too, was tossed aside. The faces of the men were no longer smiling as my hands pulled at my underwear, allowing the cotton material to drop to my ankles before kicking them off. I shivered as the cool air tickled my exposed flesh. My eyes darted to my audience.

"Never seen a woman naked before?" I asked of the men. No one responded to me, and with a shrug I continued dressing. Goose bumps rose on my flesh as I then reached down to the pile of clean clothes.

I sighed at seeing that there was no new bra or underwear. Barsad noticed.

"I never said that you had to strip yourself completely," he stated.

I glared back.

"Maybe I like being naked," I said, my voice as firm as his own. At that, Barsad's mouth closed into a firm line.

Satisfied, I looked for my delicates. Mine had landed at the foot of one of the men by the door, so I walked to him and bent over to pick the items up. Our eyes locked for a moment, and I tried to ignore how the man licked his lips. My abdomen smarted at the motion, but I pushed through the pain and let the elastic of my panties reach my waist.

The mouths of all except Barsad's were gaping slightly by the time I had finished dressing myself, smoothing over the dark shirt and military trousers. They fit awkwardly, clearly meant for a man to wear, but they did the job.

"I need shoes," I announced while turning to Barsad. He nodded down to the floor by the bed, motioning towards my own boots. Something else was commanded to the other mercenaries as I was lacing my shoes, and they all left without a word. As I rose from the floor fully dressed I looked to Barsad expectantly.

"You didn't look as surprised as they were," I said.

He held my eyes with his own, his face impassive.

"That is because I have seen a naked woman before, devojčica. Now, let us go."

I suppressed a smile as the man turned on his heels to leave.

Wherever the hell we were, it was creepy as fuck. I followed closely to Barsad as he led me down a dark and narrow hall, my eyes adjusting to the blackness. I tripped over small, unseen objects on the ground, fumbling about ungracefully in the dark while my tour guide walked on ahead. Barsad maneuvered without much struggle, walking in the dark as if the lights were on.

The air in the space around us felt heavy, dusty, and damp. Whatever place I was stepping through, it had seen better, livelier days.

"Where are we?" I asked, my voice echoing.

"We are in an old rehabilitation center."

I frowned at receiving an answer.

"So now you're gonna talk to me?" I asked.

"You did something for me, so I do something for you. You got out of bed, though I had to drag you out, and you dressed yourself. You earned an answer. Simple as that."

"Okay, why am I here?"

"What answer will you give me?" returned Barsad.

"Try me."

The hall ended, or at least Barsad stopped walking. My face bumped into his back when he did, making me tense up. I then heard a loud metal clanking noise as Barsad opened what I assumed to be a door at the end of the passage. Light streamed through the opening, my eyes squinting at the sudden brightness. Barsad entered the light and turned to me expectantly. I followed him, unsure to what would be on the other side.

"Welcome home," he said listlessly.

What lied on the other side of the hall's door was what appeared to be the main lobby of the center. From the second level platform, I could see several men walking through, each with weaponry strapped to their backs and a dangerous demeanor gracing their scowling faces. A few noticed Barsad and I, some holding eye contact with me longer than I wanted them to.

The lobby was lit up with several floodlights, their long wires strewn out on the cracked tile floor. The bulbs cast deep shadows in the corners where their reach couldn't touch, stirring within me a sense of familiarity. It was oddly comforting, as if I was standing in the Rabbits meeting room and not in a sketchy building against my will.

"This is 'home?'" I asked, turning to Barsad.

"Yes, yes it is. But it is my turn to ask a question."

My lips pursed.

"Fine. Shoot."

"What were you doing at the warehouse?"

"Which one?"

Barsad smiled at my words, a genuine grin that met his eyes this time. In another universe, one in which he did not make me do things that I didn't want to do, I would say that Barsad was an attractive man. With ocean blue eyes and a sweet smile, there was something warm about him, like that which you find in an old friend from years ago. He had a strong build and was tall in stature, his shoulders broad and his height besting mine by a few inches. Though the man carried a look of maturity, the remaining youth was in his hair, the brown locks that were short and combed forward in a boyish sort of way. All in all, Barsad was a handsome mercenary. How unfortunate that he was possibly going to try and kill me soon.

"The one from last night," the Serbian clarified.

I sighed at remembering the events of the night before. Betrayal and almost dying can be downers, and my anxiety deepened when the faces of my fellow team members came into sight. What were their fates? Were my friends alright? Did they know what happened? I had no answers. Instead I had to put up with this shit.

"Clothes. There were supposed to be a few crates full of winter jackets and stuff in the warehouse and we were to take them and give them to those who needed them for the coming months."

The mercenary nodded. I turned to look down more at the flood lights. My eyes then went back to Barsad.

"Why am I here?" I asked him.

Our eyes locked.

"I am not the one to discuss your purpose here, but I can only guess that you are here to be punished."

My eyes widened at that.

"Punished? Punished for what?"

"For lying. No one lies to Bane."

"When the hell did I do that? I barely even talked to him!"

He sighed.

"You lied about who you are. You're not Clara. You told him something different, and now he wants to punish you."

I scoffed, rolling my eyes in distaste.

"Everyone fucking lies out here!" I exasperated. "Everyone! That's how you _live_. And frankly, I'm a genius for not telling him my name!"

He quirked an eyebrow.

"Genius?"

"Yes. I know that the word might be foreign to you, but I am a genius."

"Whatever you say."

I could see it on his face. Barsad was resisting another grin, and I don't know why I did, but I gave in to my own smile. It was easy to. There I was, just smiling with Bane's henchman in an abandoned building like all was right as fucking rain. I was losing it. That much was clear.

A thought then flit across my mind.

"So why am I really here?" I asked.

He frowned.

"To be punished."

I shook my head, making the mercenary's frown deepen.

"No, no that's not it. He's put way too much effort to keep me alive just to punish me. I mean, costs alone for machinery, medical services…Barsad, what does he really want?" I pressed.

The same lifeless expression reached Barsad's eyes. Gone was the playful demeanor, replaced with a bleak professionalism.

"Come with me. You need to get your exercise for the day," the Serbian commanded.

I glared out into the lobby, my eyes finding the faces of the many mercenaries who carried on below us. Barsad was turning to move when my lips parted again.

"And if I refuse?" I said.

Barsad stopped his movements. I could feel his stare, the heaviness of my questions weighing in them. I ignored it though, the fear.

"Then I am authorized to drag you down these halls by the hair until I am satisfied," he said back.

I grimaced at the image.

"Okay," I started, my eyes finding his. I could tell that he was growing impatient in how his eyes flickered to the side before settling on mine.

"What if I want to talk to Bane?" I went on.

I think I surprised him. Barsad blinked at my question, seeming to struggle to find the right words. His lips then parted, his eyes filled with a light of warning in them.

"You do not know what you are asking for."

I scoffed.

"Listen," Barsad continued in a quiet voice, taking a step near me. My lips pursed. "You are not well enough to face him. That is why I was told to get you out of bed and begin your exercises. We will do this until you are ready. You will get what you want, I promise you. But, if you want to live, then you have to listen to what I tell you."

His face leaned into mine.

"You will not make it without me, devojčica. There is a lot of darkness in this place. These men are ordered not to touch you, but in the corners, they like to think that Bane isn't watching, and I don't know if your screams will carry that well in air as stale as this."

I swallowed.

"Did Bane tell you to tell me that?" I whispered.

Barsad thought for a moment. I could see them, the cogs of his mind spinning. He answered my question though with a short shake of the head. I nodded at his response.

"Why are you telling me this then? Why are you warning me?" I spoke on in my hushed tone.

"Do not think that I am choosing your well-being over Bane's rules," he stated firmly. "I am doing as I was told, which is to make sure that you remain alive until you are healthy enough to see Bane. That is all."

We looked at one another for a moment as those below went on with their business. I heard their heavy boots step through the place, a constant drumming of some underworld army.

"So what are you proposing?" I asked softly.

"Do as I say. That is all."

"That sounds like a shitty deal."

He nodded lightly.

"It is a shitty deal, but a deal that will let you live until you are ready to speak to Bane. Properly, that is."

With those last words, Barsad turned around and began walking down the walkway. He glanced over his shoulder, shooting me an expecting look. I sighed, but followed obediently, confused as to why he was so informative in my captivity.

We walked in silence down the walkway and through another set of large doors. Unlike the first hallway I wandered down, this one was lit by flood lights, the hall almost completely visible. As we passed musty doors and floors, I wondered at what part of the city we were at. I couldn't recall ever passing a rehab center in the past, and the fact that I was clueless only added to the unsettling feeling in my stomach. Or was that my wound? God knows.

"Can I ask a question now?" I said.

"Yes."

"How am I alive?"

I heard a faint chuckle from the man ahead of me.

"I do not know. None of us do. It is a strange miracle that you are still living."

"Oh."

Silence.

"How am I walking around?"

"It is my turn."

"Fine."

"What organization do you work for?"

As we spoke, I was led down more hallways and empty rooms, the center seeming to have an endless supply of space about it. Barsad walking through plenty of doors, choosing them almost at random but with a knowing confidence. I was right behind him, my body slowly becoming weak at the exercise.

"Rabbits."

"Pardon?"

"Rabbits. That's what we're called."

"What is the goal of er, Rabbits?"

"My turn."

"Go on then."

"Same question as before. How am I walking around?"

"Drugs."

"Okay. That was informative."

A sigh.

"It's true. You are on the medication that the doctor we found prescribed to you for the pain. I am to provide you with your medication daily, but it only lasts a few hours. It should be wearing off soon. Let's turn around now."

At that, we turned down another hall and through three more doorways, and I found myself staring down at the lobby once more. The place was a maze, and I could see why it was chosen for Bane to hole himself up in. Even as I tried to memorize the make-up of the building, everything appeared to look the same. There were no significant things that stood out, no change of color or detailed signs to recall. The more I stood around, the more screwed I realized I was.

"I will take you to your room now," stated the Serbian. "Only Bane's most trusted men know that you are residing there, and I am the only one with permission to enter."

I sighed.

"I feel so safe."

A chuckle.

"Your positive attitude has no bounds."

As we wandered back to the room that I awoke from, I began to recall my first time awakening in this place. My thoughts were foggy, but I distinctively remembering that I was not alone when I did.

"Barsad?"

"Yes, devojčica."

"Was Bane in the room when I first woke up?" I asked.

Though we were walking through the dark narrow hall, I still could sense the amusement rolling off of Barsad. That and the man chuckled again, this time with more heart in his voice.

"Yes, yes he was, devojčica," he answered me.

"What's so funny?"

Another metal clank. A soft glow of sunlight. We were in the room again, greeted by the soft chirps of the hospital machinery and weak scent of sterility.

"Get in bed," Barsad commanded, though I had no complaints against the man. My body crawled in, thankful for the chance to rest.

"What's so funny?" I repeated.

"Well," began Barsad as he pulled out a small plastic prescription bottle from one of the pockets on his cargo pants. He then opened it, spilling out two white pills and handing them to me. I eyed them suspiciously, but swallowed them anyway. What did I have to lose at that point?

"To start things off, you threw up on the man, which is very funny on its own," he at last answered me. I frowned at such a thought, but pushed away the anxiety.

"That's it?" I asked, my nerves slowly calming down.

My body was slowly relaxing, a weakness taking over each limb and fogging up my head.

To my dismay, however, Barsad shook his head at my question. My brow furrowed.

"No, I am afraid your crimes are far worse than that," he continued, that genuine smile slowly spreading across his lips.

Barsad began tugging at the line and wires, one by one attaching them to my arm. I winced when I felt the IV tube being reattached. He then clicked on some more switches on the machines. I yawned as a familiar sleepiness was taking its hold.

"What then? What did I do?"

He smiled wider.

"It is not so much what you did, but what you said," he responded.

"Okay?"

Barsad took in a breath, allotting a light laugh to escape him. I smiled at the image, a happy mercenary being human before my eyes. He was most himself in the room with me.

"What did I say, Barsad?" I pressed when his eyes found mine.

There was a glimmer of mischief in those eyes of his, and Barsad's mouth opened to speak of my transgressions.

And he was right. Vomiting was not as bad as what I said.

"You asked if Bane was single."


	6. Barsad

**Barsad**

The man has nice cheekbones. Weird, but true. The light, as sparse as it is in the shadowy halls of the rehab center, is somehow able to find those smooth cheekbones, landing softly on his face and making the rugged Serbian appear happy. Okay, happy's a stretch. Maybe I could choose a different word, a more fitting description. Cheery? No. Giddy? Bleh. That's worse than happy. Fine then, let's just say he looked _livelier_ than the other people stomping about in their heavy boots, greased faces, and cargo pants, which I suppose is the fashion staple in the land of hired guns and killers since that's all I see these freakin' people wear. Not that I'm much of a fashionista myself, but who really needs that many pockets on a pair of pants?

What gives him away the most are his lips. You see, Barsad is like me in a sense. He's good at hiding how he really feels, covering his intentions with a practiced mask of false emotion. I see him though. I see the man behind the mask. He's good at hiding, but not perfect. Even when he strives to come off as apathetic and impassive as ever, I can always steal a glance at his mouth and know how he's really feeling. Alright, maybe not fully _know_, but I'd like to think that my guesses are pretty spot on. They purse often, those lips, and when he's agitated they form into this straight, firm line for about a split second. When he's really, really, pissed, they twitch. Subtle, but I see it. The twitch. I've seen them twitch if a person enters my room without knocking. His brow crinkles, too, for a millisecond before it laxes over into something unreadable. He says that it is very rude, people entering a space without knocking first, and that even in a place like this manners are always to be upheld.

What a prick.

He's a coffee drinker, a heavy gulper of the stuff, and takes it black. He has a cup in his hand every time I see him in the morning and always burns himself at least three times before finally giving up and waiting like a sensible man.

I've never watched him light up, but I know he smokes. I can smell it on his clothes. It's the first thing I pick up on when he enters the room, the dry smell of tobacco so heavy about him like a musty cloud. I don't blame the guy. People tend to ask him a lot of questions, whispering things in his ear or reporting God knows what through a cheap cell phone he keeps on his person at all times. And I can tell if he had spoken to Bane or not because if he did, the cigarette smell would be stronger, and he would run his fingers through his hair a few times more than a normal person would. Stress. Those blue eyes of his would study me closely. He would curse under his breath. I wonder what it is that Bane says that makes him so tense. He becomes anxious, antsy. My antsy, antsy chimney man.

Oh, and he sings. He sings in Russian. When he's relaxed, or at least less anxious I should say for Barsad is hardly relaxed, the man softly sounds out the language of the Motherland in a whispering song that only those listening for it can hear. I could sing them aloud straight from memory. Considering that I spend every waking second with the man, bathroom breaks and all, I've become a keen observer of the latest musical sensation of the mercenary world.

I think he polishes his boots. He seems like the type who would polish his boots.

"Do you polish your boots?"

The words left my lips before I could be bothered to stop them, not that I bothered much at all when I was around Barsad. Time in constant companionship can do that to you.

The fear left me by day three. We were on day fifteen.

Barsad lounged on the chair beside my bed, his eyes pulling away from the pages of the small book in his hand.

"What did you ask?" he said while exhaling.

I picked at my fingernails.

"Nothing."

He looked at me for a moment, probably contemplating whether or not to care. I peeked at him from under my lashes. Barsad's face was unreadable, the skin smooth, probably freshly shaven. His blue eyes were youthful, the teasing light from the high windows of the room flickering off of them.

A moment of thought, but Barsad chose not to ask for clarification and glanced back down at his writing. In his hand was a little nub of a pencil scribbling on the crinkled paper of the book. I assumed it to be a journal of some sort. The little red book was always with him, always ready to be jotted in by the scribbles of John Barsad.

John. His first name was John, which I didn't like that much. How tragic. Disappointing. It seemed too simple for a man like Barsad, a man who probably had one of the toughest jobs in Gotham's underbelly. Part of me wants to believe that it really isn't John because what Serbian is named just plain ol' "John?" I mean, really? Then again, I only assumed he was Serbian. Maybe his real name was too hard to pronounce.

Maybe I don't like to be surrounded by the ordinary. Maybe I'm attracted to chaos, to danger, like an adventure-seeking psychopath. I guess that's the root of my evil, my cross to bear.

"Are you ready for your daily exercise?" he spoke.

I glanced out the window. They were too high to really make out anything, the small rectangles of glass, but I tried to peer out all the same.

"Doesn't matter to me."

At that, I heard his little book shut and the metal chair creak as Barsad rose from his seat. I stuck out my arm to him, giving him silent permission to remove all the wires and whatnot from my body.

"Nothing really matters, devojčica. Not for you at least."

My eyes found his.

"Thanks. I was really starting to have hope there for a second."

My legs swung over the bed's edge.

"Never hope," he sighed. "Nothing really matters."

"Just walk me around, Mercury," I said.

"Mercury?"

"Never mind."

Fifteen days. I've been stuck with the mercenaries for two whole weeks, days piled on one another. As I stated before, I've been taken against my will in the past by thugs, but they were small fries, baby minnows in a lake. My stay never exceeded a few hours because I knew a lot of people, powerful people. The big fish came for me then, my saviors, but the longer I laid on the cot allotted to me by Gotham's Reckoning, the more I realized that maybe I wasn't in a lake anymore. Maybe I was a fish out of water.

My body was almost fully healed, which was a blessing and a curse. I felt sluggish, my muscles and strength weakening to a shade of what it once was. I was a mixture of better and worse, and in the end it would all be for not. When I was completely free of the pain from my injuries, I would see Bane. To be tortured and most likely killed, that was my future. The occasion wasn't one to look forward to. Like a steer prepped for slaughter, these walks were hardly meant to make me stronger. No, their purpose was to simply prep me for the slaughterhouse.

"Wait here."

His tone was stern, but his mouth told me it was just a façade. Barsad was a serious man, but I could tell that he had become more comfortable around me. He rarely was strict, the only times he was strict being solely meant to be a spectacle to the men around us. This was just a guess of course, but hey, his mouth wasn't twitching.

The dining area of the lower level was the only place on the first floor that I was allowed to go to. Only with Barsad, of course. Lit by flood lights, the space was an eye sore. A few tilted tables with rickety folding chairs counted as the sole furniture in the hollow space. Add a few mercenaries and the makeshift cafeteria might pass as something livable, a room where people actually inhabited every once and awhile. It was being used as I stood there by Barsad, three other mercenaries joining us in the large room. The "chef" had a gnarly beard and was the man that Barsad was looking for. The Serbian's pencil was jotting down notes in that book of his in the far corner as he spoke to the cook, leaving me alone to shift anxiously from foot to foot. A broad shouldered man with a hood up and bandana on his face leaned on a wall by the entrance, reading a scrappy novel of some sort. Another hired gun, a tubby one, stared at me from his chair at one of the tables.

I felt on edge around the other mercenaries. I didn't know how much they knew about me, or what orders they received regarding my stay there at the center. The one with the book seemed to be minding his own business, but as for the other guy, well, he was a different story.

"Hey, sweetheart."

My eyes flickered over at the one who dared to speak to me.

"Hi," I answered to the older man who had risen from his place at the table.

He had to be about six foot, add four or five inches, weighed maybe two hundred and fifty pounds, give or take. Crooked teeth. Crooked nose. Halitosis, amongst other bodily odors. I'm not going to even bother to describe what he was wearing. You should get it by now.

"Funny findin' a gal like you in this place."

His head tilted to the side like a reptile. I blinked, choosing not to respond.

"How are ya, hot tits?" he pressed.

Hot tits? How original_._

"I'm okay," I answered plainly.

"Just okay?" he said. He stepped nearer, his heavy footfalls making the floor shake. "That doesn't sound fun."

I shrugged.

"I'm not that fun of a person, to tell you the truth," I said.

The stranger sauntered closer to my person, his snake eyes studying me as he moved. I felt watched, as if I were a rat in some cage. It was unsettling, so much that I turned my head to look over my shoulder for Barsad.

But he was gone. Air caught in my dry throat. My Serbian, my body guard, was no longer standing by the cook with his book, no longer in the large space with me at all. There was no cook either. To my confusion, my sole protector in the situation had abandoned me to be stuck with the d-bag and the bookworm in the corner. I was all alone. I tried my best to mask my panicked state, tried my best not to make it so obvious that I felt pretty fucked just standing there.

"Hey, eyes on me," prompted the stranger beside me. I looked at him as he commanded, taking in his lustful brown orbs with my own green eyes.

"What?" I asked.

"I know where you sleep. Ya know that?"

"Cool."

I focused my attention elsewhere in the room, debating in my mind if I should make a run for it. He didn't look too fast, but I had no place to flee to.

"Know what I can do? What I _want_ to do?"

He sounded giddy, excited, like a child.

"Don't really care, to be honest," I stated.

My eyes resettled on his face. The man's stupid grin widened.

In a whisper, he said, "I can bust in there any time I want. Your room. I can just kick down that door upstairs tonight if I feel like it. And when I do, then we see how fun you really are."

I stifled an eye roll. Kidnapped woman harassed by horny captor. This was too cliché.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," he said smugly.

The smell of his rank breath numbed my senses.

"You can suck my cock if you'd like to," he told me.

My lips pursed, disgusted. I glared at the man, really looked into his eyes at his last statement.

"And what if I don't want to?" I said to him.

He swallowed and I swore I saw the foulness of his nature swell in his eyes.

"Then I'll make you."

Silence followed his offer. I ground my teeth. Uncomfortable wasn't a satisfying enough word to describe how I was feeling there in the shadows of Gotham's underworld, forced to undergo a conversation involving a stranger's penis and my unwilling mouth. We looked into each other's eyes, my gaze hopefully telling him how I really felt about the whole thing. Something told me that he couldn't read people that well. He licked his lips and I had about all that I could take.

"I'd rather not, thanks," I said.

Silence.

My feet began turning me away from him, my little attempt at escape, but his meaty hand grabbed my shoulder firmly. My jaw clenched.

"Where do ya think you're headin' off to, little miss?"

I huffed.

"To find Barsad."

"That kiss ass. Fuck him. I never said that we were done talkin'."

The way he spoke was familiar. Gritty. Dirty. I hear it in dark bars and alleyways, on cracked street corners and underground platforms. I hear it all the time in Gotham City. That same lustful tone owned by the lowest of men. I sized him up. His responses were so predictable, like clockwork. I could see where this was heading because the end point is always the same with men like this.

"Well," I began. "I _am_ done talkin', asshole."

I knocked his hand off my shoulder.

"Don't fucking touch me," I added.

And just like that, my harsh warning morphed the man into a more lively person.

"Haha, I knew you weren't sweet!" he cackled.

The tension was amplified by the bellowing laughter of the large mercenary in front of me, his voice bouncing off of the cold walls of the cafeteria.

He pointed his index finger in my face. I flinched. "You're a little liar! Ya must be somethin' _nasty_ to end up in this place."

My eyes narrowed. I could feel it, the last layer of my patience cracking and sending small cracks along the layer's surface, the final barrier of my self-control dwindling to nothing at each crude word that left his ugly mouth. I was about to shatter.

My face leaned in.

"Leave me alone or I'll cut off your eyelids."

Clear, crisp, my voice couldn't have delivered a message any more precise. I could only pray that it was well received.

He scoffed.

"With what?" he asked.

My lips parted to snap back, but something caught my attention. The light of the flood bulbs found it, the shining surface of metal. My eyes flickered down to his hand and the thing that he was gripping between dirty fingers. A knife. A sharp blade in his fat palm.

I raised an eyebrow at the sight, my lips pulling at the edges of my mouth again.

Hallelujah. Maybe God didn't leave me after all.

"Cut my eyes? Shit, how do ya' plan on doing that, hot tits? You need one of _these_, and I'm not one for sharin'," the big man said.

I pulled back on my enthusiasm, playing along. My body trembled.

"Um, okay, okay. I'm, um, s-sorry," I told him through a shaky voice.

A set of jagged and yellowed teeth reappeared as the large mercenary smiled. I swallowed.

"I knew you were sorry, baby, but I'm only going to make you feel sorrier, whether it be with your mouth or your ass, we'll see."

"Please," I begged. "Please, you don't want to do this!"

I took a small step backward as I spoke on.

"W-What about Bane? You know? What would B-Bane think knowing you'd hurt m-me?"

Tears began streaming down my cheeks. I let out a weak sob. The man with the blade smiled once more, clearly pleased at my apparent fear. Excellent.

"Bane?" scoffed the mercenary. "I don't give a _shit_ about what that guy says! He's just some psycho with a mask! I haven't been here long, but I see how the guy acts. It's all talk! Thinks that just 'cause he blew some buildings up a few years ago, he's got some street cred or whatever. Bullshit! Bane's just some radical idealist with a fucked up face, and he doesn't have the power to control Gotham, let alone me!"

The pompous assurance in his voice was nauseating. He had to be "the new guy." Who else would be so arrogant?

Idiot.

"So which will it be?" he prompted.

My body tensed as the large man lifted the knife in his hand to twirl it before my face. He twirled it in front of my nose, teasing me.

"Which will it be?" he beckoned.

"Which will what be?"

His eyes rolled.

"Your mouth or your ass?"

Blood pumped through my veins like a rushing river of boiling water. I was feeling a mixture of anxiety and anger, the heat of my emotion making my breathing quicken. Taking him down wouldn't be easy, and my mind couldn't focus because it kept wondering where Barsad had gone or if anyone for that matter was going to get this fucking man away from me.

His tongue ran over his lips and his eyes were wild with some form of carnal pleasure. He really believed that he was going to defeat me. He really believed that I was going to just scream and take it.

What a fucking cliché.

We looked into each other's eyes one last time, diving into each other's windows before the chaos followed.

"Um, well…" I sniffled.

My knee shot up and delivered a hard blow to the man's groin. A cheap shot, I know, but I wasn't going to go down easily, not by the likes of him. As he bowed forward from the pain, my shirt was gathered in his fist, pulling me close to his foul body.

"You bitch," he accused through gritted teeth.

I wrestled in his grip as his hand rose to cut me with his knife. My fingers scratched at his wrist, but his hold on my shirt was unbreakable. I needed to try something new.

As his hand moved to cut me, my fingers extended towards his chubby face. My nails dug into the sweaty flesh in desperation, scratching blindly. I clawed at the skin by his eyes. It was so thin there and the response was immediate.

He cried out as I tore at the corners of his eye lids, the thin flesh bleeding. With his eyes closed tightly shut, his hand with the knife hesitated and the one gripping my clothes shoved me away.

I wanted to smile. My opportunity had revealed itself.

I yanked myself free of the bastard, taking a step back before sending my boot directly into his disgusting mouth. He stumbled at the impact, cursed, but rose to challenge me once again. He was squinting through his dark eyes, peering out from his pained lids.

A grunt and the large man was stomping in my direction once more. He swiped at me with his blade, the air hissing with every sharp motion he made. I stepped back and dodged his assault, my eyes waiting to see him make a mistake.

There. He lunged much too forward. I dodged. He was exposed. I moved in, slipping the gap and delivering a blunt blow to his forehead using the heel of my hand. I hit him with all I had. His motions slowed. With my other hand, I grabbed his fat throat directly from under the jaw. I lifted upward. He screamed as his body became still as stone.

"Y-You bitc-"

"Shut up," I commanded, my fingers probing the pressure point. His face winced.

"I'm sick of your voice. You're really annoying to listen to," I went on.

"Fuck you!"

"No, fuck you!"

Tightly I squeezed on the point of pressure, hurting the man as he stood on his knees.

"What, you think just because I'm a woman I can't kick your sorry ass? I'm no Mary Sue, fuck-tard, so it looks like someone made a pretty big mistake today, that someone being you."

His crimson blood was dripping from his mouth and down his chin. I felt the warm ooze on my fingers as I held him by the neck.

"What do you want from me?" he said with a raspy voice.

"The knife. Where did you throw the knife?"

"You got eyes! Look for it yourself, cun-"

I tightened my grip.

"Nu-uh. Your voice is annoying, remember?"

I tore my eyes away from his bludgeoned face to look for the weapon. I scoured the floor and at last found the thing sitting by one of the legs of the table.

"Who do you think you are?"

I frowned at the question.

"What?"

His throbbing pulse under my fingertips began to ebb. I watched as his face slowly started to relax, the fear fading in his eyes and replaced with a new light, an amused light. My brow knit together. This wasn't going as I wanted it to.

"You think you won?" he then asked in a choked voice. I glowered down at him. The asshole dared to laugh. His voice bellowed throughout the whole space.

"Well, yeah. Yeah I do," I responded.

His laughter faded.

"Look around, hot tits," he told me. "You're all alone. There's no one to save you from me, even if you manage to grab that little knife over there."

My eyes narrowed.

"I don't need anyone."

He laughed again.

"Pressure points are great at first," said the man.

I felt the muscle of his neck flex under my fingertips. My eyes widened.

"However," he began, "To the trained mercenary, you can hardly be effective if that's all it takes to take you out."

With great strength, the man rose from the ground. My hand was easily removed from his throat, crushed by the power he possessed in his own. Something hard hit me in the back of my ankles, and I was suddenly shoved backwards.

Before I knew it, I found myself pinned down to the cold, concrete floor, my eyes straining to stare into the eyes of the mercenary as he hovered over my body. My head smarted from the impact. Those brown eyes of his were predatory and victorious. I couldn't turn away.

"So," I coughed. His gaze pierced me. "You're not completely stupid?"

The edge of his mouth twitched before he smiled again.

"Nah. I'm not. You're good, I'll give ya that, hot tits."

His cold fingertips traced my jawline before holding my chin still.

"No one," he began quietly.

His mauled face slowly lowered to mine, all the while his cold eyes stared hollowly into my own. The hotness of his breath was enough to get me squirming, but with most of his body weight pressing down, escape was an impossibility. I was panting, he was so fucking heavy.

"No one will hear you scream. No one will know what I'm going to do to you, little girl."

I opened my mouth to yell something in return, but his sweaty palm covered it. I screamed into his hand, a small panic rising in my chest. I watched as his hand dove into his pants pocket and pulled out a switchblade. The metal flickered in the flood light.

"Neat scar you got here," he commented, his dark eyes studying my eyebrow.

With his thumb, the man stroked the skin above my eyes, feeling the thin mark there. I shivered. His eyes then grew larger with excitement.

"Let's make it bigger!" he shouted with glee.

The pain, the stinging pain that burned when he cut me was instantaneous. I grinded down on my teeth, clenching my eyes shut as the monster on my body slowly cut the skin on my face in the exact area of my scar, the sensation all too familiar and just as traumatizing as the first cut so many years ago. I felt like I was drowning. The feeling of being trapped, so intimately close to the one who was assaulting my body. It was unreal.

Something warm oozed down my temple and into my thick hair. I started to shake.

When I dared to open my eyes, I was forced to look at his face, the face of the man who was torturing me. He was getting off on my misery, on his cruel control of my life and reactions.

It was all too reminiscent. So close, too close for any comfort.

"That's my girl," he purred.

I winced as he ran a finger over the gash.

"I like it when you-"

But that was it. I never would know what I did that the large man liked. He was suddenly gone before I heard the rest of his sentence. His fat, hot body was removed, and his strangled gasps suddenly entered the air around us so fast that I was at a loss as to what the fuck was happening next.

My body shot up and it didn't take long for me to see what was going on a few feet beside me on the tiled floor. The man from earlier, the quiet one with the hood and bandana had his knee on the lying body of the one who attacked me. The latter was thrashing violently on the ground, struggling to be removed of the hooded man's weight.

Curiosity. It's like a sickening disease of the mind. It caused me to stay. It caused me to not run away like any sensible person would. It scooted me across the floor, nudging me towards the gruesome scene before my eyes.

The hooded stranger had one knee on the other man's chest and one hand holding the other's head still. I scooted again and my eyes widened at the sight.

The novel he was reading, it was rolled and my rescuer was shoving it down my attacker's throat. Half of the book was out of his mouth, the old pages soaking up the saliva that he was drooling out. The gasps were the sounds of the other's attempts to breathe, to resist his own end. I watched in bewilderment as my heavy attacker laid on his back, his limbs flailing wildly and his eyes bulging as he stared up at his new enemy.

The other man, on the other hand, was calm, focused. I had forgotten about him entirely, my silent witness to the pain that the big man had caused me. His fingers gripped the book firmly, slowly forcing it into the other's mouth with a steady hand. His eyes, I could barely see them, stared down at his victim, waiting patiently for the other man to die. I didn't realize how strong he was, how capable he was to hold down such a large person and with such an ease that he made it look easy.

My attacker's face was a deep shade of purple, and with one last cough, his body went limp, his eyes forever open and gazing up.

Satisfied, the hooded man rose from the floor, his eyes never leaving the corpse. I did nothing but stare at him in silence, my own fear consuming me and forcing me to remain still. To run would be foolish, I decided. To fight him off? Yeah, right.

He turned. I tensed. He studied me, I could tell, taking me in with his stare and looking mainly at the cut on my face. I blinked at him, waiting for him to start choking me too with another book or whatever else was in his jacket.

His boots made a heavy sound as the stranger strut towards my sitting form. I could feel the ground tremble as his movements, as if it, too, knew that he was a murderer. When he reached me, he towered. My head tilted up to take him in, to be at his mercy.

There was no sudden attack, no book to be forced past my lips. The man didn't strike me. He didn't say a word as he merely squatted down to me. I flinched away, but with firmness the hooded mercenary extended his hand and gently held me still. His fingers tilted my head this way and that, examining my wound with those cold eyes of his.

"What," I began.

He paused.

"What, um, are you doing?" I asked.

His hand then let go of me and he continued to hold my attention.

Without turning his head, the being gestured something to someone behind him.

I was confused for I didn't see nor hear anyone in the room with us or outside from where we were. At least, no one came rushing in with all the noise that was going on. However, despite the desolation I felt from that lively, atrocious experience, from the darkness of the shadows, emerged the one and only Barsad.

Seeing him was like a flame to gasoline. My anger flared and consumed me whole.

"What the hell are you doing here? Where the fuck did you go?" I yelled. I couldn't control myself. I didn't even care that the large stranger before me heard, I was flaming pissed.

"I almost fucking died! He almost killed me! You left me here with a monster, you asshole! Are you listening to me, you sack of shit?"

What made me angrier was that Barsad only gave me a reassuring nod in my direction before handing a small tin box to the stranger squatted beside me. He then left the room, not looking back or offering any solid response whatsoever. Oh, yeah. I was going to murder that Serbian. He was a dead man walking. I made sure he could feel the holes that I was burning in the back of that little head of his. I tried to make it combust with my hate fire.

While I was trying to project my feelings on to Barsad's head, the man in front of me pressed something soft against my forehead. Startled, I crawled back, my eyes suddenly wide and all attention gauged on the stranger. His eyes told me that he was frustrated at my reaction.

"Don't touch me," I warned.

I heard him sigh. It sounded strange.

He cleared his throat.

"Come here."

My heart stopped.

"Come here," he repeated. "Now."

I couldn't believe it. That voice. That dark, deep voice.

"What?" I asked softly.

My anger turned into a ripened fear. Deep down, I was praying that the man wasn't who I thought he was.

"Come here right now or I'll drag you back by your ankle. And if you try to run away, I'll break it."

His threat was serious. I could see it in his stare. Despite my fear, I somehow was able to will my body to move back to where I was sitting before. I've never been so obedient in my life.

He nodded his head approvingly before his hands started to do their work again on my face, pressing a stack of gauze against my forehead.

"What are you doing?" I questioned. I swear I could hear my heart.

"Make a deduction," he stated plainly, not bothering to meet my eyes.

I frowned.

"Well, I get that you're helping me, but I don't understand why."

His hand slowly reached down to one of my own. My muscles stiffened, but he merely grabbed it and raised it to the gauze.

"Hold this in place," he commanded. I nodded as he turned back to the small tin box that Barsad the Bastard handed to him.

A small glass bottle was removed next from the box, its liquid spilt on to a piece of gauze and lifted to where my hand was holding the first stack. He switched the stacks, and the liquid burned when it touched my cut. I tried my best not to swat him away from me.

A short silence consumed us as we sat in the room together. Looking at him then, I could see that it was Bane. His size was a dead giveaway, for one. With such large hands and broad shoulders, I was mentally kicking myself for not recognizing him sooner. And those slate green eyes, they were so serious, so focused on the task at hand. I could see the lines around his eyes, the way his brow furrowed. It was Bane. I had no doubt.

I heard him take in a breath.

"I was testing you."

"Testing me?" I echoed.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Bane let out another sigh from behind the bandana that covered the lower section of his face.

"Do you normally waste your breath by not waiting for the full answers to your own questions?"

My mouth shut instantly. Part me feared that I had angered him, but judging by the tone in Bane's voice, I believe that I was simply scolded.

I chose not to reply. He went on.

"That man over there was a problem. I found a way to solve two issues with one solution. You."

"Oh."

Bane kept one hand on my forehead while the other reached back down to the tin box.

As he applied some type of medical tape to my face, I decided to speak.

"That wasn't a very great explanation."

His eyes found mine. I stopped breathing.

"By whose standards?"

"Mine."

"And why should I care if my explanation is good enough for you?" he questioned.

I couldn't tell if his question required an answer.

"You don't have to," I began. He cocked his head to the side, his eyes becoming less hardened. I think I surprised him.

"I don't have to," he repeated.

"Right. You don't have to care, but I'd still like to know what your plan is, or was. Will you please tell me?"

His expression became unreadable.

"Please?" I repeated softly.

A pause, a deliberation of thought. I could see him thinking, weighing the scales in his mind. To me, it didn't sound like much a sacrifice. Apparently, it was.

"You are strong. That gunshot should have killed you, but you persevered. I am interested in those who can persevere, and I wanted to see if you could do it again. I had Barsad leave you here with me and a man that has shown very little respect towards my cause. I wanted him dead and wanted to see if you could defend yourself. I was able to observe the latter, though I had to take care of the former myself."

I blinked at his words, taken back that he actually explained his little plan to me. I could tell that he was waiting for me to speak, to respond in any way at all. When nothing happened, he sighed once more.

"What is your name?"

I flinched.

"What?"

A new anger flashed in his eyes.

"I don't like to repeat myself."

"I don't like being kidnapped and held against my will," I shot back.

"I saved your life."

My lips parted to say something, but I then closed my mouth at remembering the IV drip and the stitches that lined my stomach.

"Why?" I asked.

His eyes narrowed.

"I might need you later on."

"For what?"

"That is none of your concern for now."

"Then I'll leave."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know."

"But you're leaving?"

"I can fucking try."

"I don't doubt that you will, but I suggest that you stay."

"Fuck off."

An amused light filled his eyes.

"Your mouth isn't the cleanest."

"I've had it rough."

"I don't doubt it."

At that, I ceased talking.

Slowly, Bane raised his hand to the bandana. He pulled the cloth away, revealing the metal of his mask, the mechanism that became his trademark.

"I don't doubt that your life has been hard here. I believe that whole-heartedly."

Those strong legs of his stretched as he rose from the floor, towering over me once more.

"Wouldn't it be nice then if you could spare others from suffering in this place?" Bane asked. I watched as his eyes left mine and wandered to gaze at the old tables and chairs of the cafeteria. "

"It is a nice thought, I believe," he added. "I can do that. I can change things."

"It's because of you, life is as it is here," I said.

His shoulders shrugged. I grimaced. My legs lifted from the dirty floor.

"Did you hear me?" I pressed. "You are the reason that this place is so shitty. You came, you ruined everything, and then you left us here to pick up the pieces."

"The Gotham from the past was a hollow place. The only difference that exists between the present and the past is that the wreckage is now visible. The ruin, you can touch."

Through divine intervention, I was able to maintain my anger towards Bane. He made our suffering sound so poetic that it stoked the flames of my buried distaste. Am I still bitter towards him for what happened two years ago? A little. At least I still can taste at all, even if the flavor is a sour one.

Bane's eyes returned to me and lit up.

"You are angry with me," he stated, his voice sounding lighter.

"Of course I am," I snapped back.

His boots shook the ground as he stepped closer to me, the height of his body overwhelming me from the inside. I chose not to look at his face this time for I feared that my hate towards the world might show through them.

"Good."

I glared at the floor.

"What's good?" I at last asked.

"That you're angry," he answered gently.

His cold fingers then reached up and grabbed my jaw, forcing me to look up at his impassive face. It was like before at the harbor. It was cold. It was dark. The sound of his mechanical breathing filled the space between my face and his, the tension in the air growing with every passing second that I was forced to stand there.

"Now," he said darkly. "Tell me, what is your name?"

"I don't want to tell you."

His muscles tensed and his eyes strained.

"Why?" he asked, the chagrin of his person radiating through his deep voice.

"I have to protect someone," I answered.

"Who?"

"Someone. Someone important to me."

"Tell me your first name then."

I swallowed, and I swore that he could hear me. I felt like the world was empty except for that dark cafeteria. All that I was feeling in that moment, the fear, the anger, the anxiety, it all was focused in my eyes as I glared into his empty eyes.

"Adelie."

My face was let go.

"Welcome to my home, Adelie," he said coolly.

Bane's eyes were still on my face. I could feel them. I stared at his boots, the ones that I threw up on.

"I can't wait to break you."


	7. You're Like Me

**Why do I take so long to update? Because I care. Probably too much, but I do. I loathe sloppy writing, and though writing is more of a therapy from life's stresses for me, I like to do it well rather than slap something together for the sake of meeting an imaginary deadline. Thank you to those who were patient. I hope you enjoy. Your reviews are much loved.**

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**You're Like Me**

"You are _pathetic_!"

That stupid accent. The way he said "pathetic." He practically hissed it out. It bit at my nerves. The words rolled off of his tongue with that European heritage of his, alleged Eastern European, sounding out each syllable with enough acid to burn at my composure. I was sick of his voice, sick of the way he kept yelling at me.

I swung. His head ducked just in time. Any longer and he would have felt the harsh blow from the back of my hand for sure. I made another swift move towards him, my leg swinging up and missing his pompous head by an inch.

He scoffed as he maneuvered a step backward out of range.

"You give yourself away!" he shouted.

He's nothing. Block him out. My mind tried its best to ignore his attitude and I pressed on with even more fervor in my blood.

"You're so obvious, _kurva_."

Oh, now he's shifted to mocking me in a different language. How clever.

My anger raged after that.

Duck.

Step back.

Lunge.

"Little _kurva…_"

Side step.

"You're doing it all wrong."

Lunge.

Punch.

Duck.

"Too slow."

Step towards.

Kick.

"Ugh, that's it."

Without warning, Barsad's hand reached out and snatched my wrist, twisting it painfully in his grip and forcing me to the floor. I cursed in agony, the words echoing off of the moist brick of the basement and reaching the ears of no one. My cries were ignored, and though I fought on, even I knew that there was no point. Even I knew that I was beaten. My throat choked on the dust of the storage room, its tiny bits mixing with my spit and creating a foul tasting paste on my tongue. I spat out all that I could before I felt Barsad's cold hand on my shoulder. My body was then flipped over on its back with a curt jerk. I wretched as his knee was planted on my heaving chest, my eyes straining to glare at his face.

"Are you even listening to me?" he said.

His impatience with me was palpable, and all I could do was lay there and try to catch my breath.

Barsad was waiting for an actual answer. I huffed out a gasp of hot air.

"I try not to."

Those lips of his twitched. I smiled a small grin, which only pissed him off more.

"You need to adjust your methods of combat. You're close to being a decent fighter, but you still need to mask your moves."

"Kind of hard to adjust myself at all when your instructions lack detail," I answered.

His eyes narrowed.

"You're too obvious."

"You're too demanding."

His blue eyes rolled like ocean waves.

"That simply goes to show that you lack adaptability as well, devojčica."

His weight was removed, and his hand reached down to kindly help me up. I groaned before taking his hand in my own, dreading what was to come.

"Again," Barsad stated.

Again. For the sixth time, again.

Killing myself seemed like the most logical answer to the conundrum of my habitation with the mercenaries. I had no desire to wait any longer for a rescuer who may not even show up in the long run. By now, those who I knew on the Outside would have noticed my disappearance, surely, but considering the dystopia that I am forced to call home, anyone who was missing was written off as dead after a few weeks. I'd like to say that Holly, Harris, Jean, and Beau cared about me enough to wait, to search, but I also tried to be realistic. They wouldn't know where to start. I doubt that they even spotted Bane that night so long ago. Even if Hector with all of his connections and ears on the streets, even if he attempted to find me, by now his faith would have dissipated to nothing. I was a whisper in the wind, a forgotten friend. I was fucked.

Escape? Not likely. Barsad never left me alone. If he wasn't with me in a room, he was just outside the door with that little red book. No doubt he was assigned to me, paired for life and commanded to never let me be alone for too long, though I wonder if it was for my own safety or rather so that I don't try to flee from this place. Probably the latter. I knew too much. And even if I managed to get away from Barsad, where would I go? I have yet to see an exit anywhere, so if I could run off, I wouldn't get too far before I would end up completely lost just to be eventually found by a mercenary. There really was no point.

I sighed, discouraged. Death by my own hand wasn't the most glorifying way out of this hell hole. Part of me was a little guilty at the thought of ending my own life. I felt like it was just a cop out, a weak way of saying "I give up." Disappointing, really. I know the knowledge of my suicide would piss off a lot of people, one in particular to a raging level that would follow me to the next life.

Him. I shivered. My mind tried to shove his harsh voice and manic face out of my head, placing the idea of killing myself on a shelf in my mind to reopen some other time.

One thought was already taken off of the shelf though. Him. I tried my best to prevent myself from diving too deep in thought, tried my best to just shove him away. I couldn't. I never can once I start. I frowned at his memory. It was still there, that wicked face. I could never forget it, though to be honest, I try. I always try. It's been months since the last time he and I spoke to one another, and even back then the conversation was short and unpleasant. Sometimes against my better judgment I catch myself missing him, the way he laughed and the way he spoke about people, like they were some strange phenomenon not meant to walk on our soil. I remember the way he would stare, those icy looks that seemed to kill those who caught him looking. Ghosts, he called them. He made it a hobby to study people, and it was a horrible thing if his curiosity was stronger than his judgment. Which was always. Then again, it all goes back to the ghost thing. He told me once that people were not worth the time to understand because the end they weren't real. "A great waste," his voice would say nonchalantly. "A great waste of flesh and marrow." They were just ghosts, "empty and hollow wastes." He never cared for them. He always struggled to relate. Except to me. He could relate to me and I missed him.

"I'll be right back," Barsad said, snapping me out of my memories.

"Where are you going?"

"Upstairs. Don't bother trying to run. There are people above us."

My brow furrowed as I watched him strut away and up the stairs of the storage basement. I reached up to allow my sweaty palm to run over my damp face, spreading the salty filth. I really needed to shower. My body odor was repulsive.

While Barsad was away, my hand reached into one of the many pockets of my cargo pants. Fingers dug around and I found the hard handle of what I was looking for. From the pocket I took out the small knife from my skirmish with the fat man. The metal glistened under the faint light of the bulb above me, the whiteness of the light dancing on the far wall of the room. My fingertip ran over the blade's edge, feeling the sharpness without managing to cut my own skin. It needed some work, 'twas a little dull, but a knife was a knife, and I was overjoyed at the idea that I was able to snatch it and keep it for myself. I didn't know if Bane saw me take it when he was talking. If he did, he was generous for letting me have it. That, or stupid. If he didn't notice then he really was all talk like the man he killed said.

I flinched at the sound of the door creaking open. My fingers were fumbling with the blade, shoving it back in my pocket before Barsad fully entered the doorway. When my eyes met his, I could tell that he didn't see what I feared he would. My breathing slowed.

"What?" I asked.

His shoulders shrugged as he raised something to his mouth. I squinted. A red apple. His teeth bit into the fruit, breaking the skin with a loud crunch.

"You've been quiet," he answered with his mouth full.

Something red flew in the air and I was able to catch it before it pegged my face. I turned the object in my palm, a small sense of satisfactory filling me.

"Thanks," I said, taking my own bite.

The juice was sweet and just the right amount of sour. It ran down my chin and dripped in my lap, but I didn't bother wiping it away. I bit into my fruit again, as did Barsad.

"What are you thinking about?" the Serbian asked. His frame leaned against the brick wall by the stairs.

"I'm thinking about killing myself."

As expected, the man didn't bat an eye.

"Ah," Barsad sighed.

"Yep."

"That sounds boring."

"It's actually harder than you'd think."

His brow raised.

"Having second thoughts?"

"No, not like that," I said. "I mean, I can't think of that many ways to get the job done, you know? Peacefully, that is. There's no water for me to drown in. I haven't seen any pills to swallow. I mean, I could like, jump off something tall, but then I might just paralyze myself, and that would be a billion times worse than living here with movable limbs. Plus, I don't want it to be a long, painful thing either. Too dramatic and I don't want to risk having any second thoughts. Not the best way to go. I guess my best option would be to impale myself like in the chest or something, but what if I botch it up? I might miss my heart and just smash a lung. I don't know. I'm stuck."

Barsad just looked at me, his crystal blue eyes running over my face. His lips didn't twitch. They just hung there before he took in a deep breath.

"You're fucked up in the head, you know that?" he told me.

My eyes drifted to the floor then flickered back to his passive face. Smooth, his skin was so nice and looked soft to the touch.

"I know."

At that, he flashed me a smile. A real one. It met his eyes, the strange feelings of friendship that I'd like to believe that have formed since I first arrived. It was hard to lump Barsad with the rest of the thugs upstairs. He was more polite, more human, at least towards me. I've seen him be a little bossy and hard towards those who royally pissed him off, but other than the whole yanking me out of bed moment, Barsad's been alright. Maybe he wasn't that bad. There was an easiness about Barsad, a nonchalant attitude that touched me whenever he was around. Sure, he was my captor and made me do whatever his boss told him to, but in the end I think he means well and—OhmyGod, I'm developing Stockholm syndrome…

"You alright?" the man asked me as I began choking on a bite of apple.

My hand waved him off as he rose from his spot by the stairs. He appeared mildly concerned, probably more over the idea of having to report anything medically wrong with me to Bane than my safety.

I felt like screaming. The last thing I wanted was a real reason to actually like Barsad. The very, _very_ last thing I wanted was to develop a psychological disorder in this place.

I needed to get out. I needed to escape.

When my coughing stopped, I cleared my throat.

"What's next on your honey-do list?" I asked.

His lips pursed.

I smiled.

"What's next, Barsad?"

For a moment, Barsad appeared to be pondering something. The way he stared off into emptiness, thoughts flitting across his mind and stirring my curiosity. I waited patiently for him to let me know what he was thinking about, if he was going to anyway. At last, those orbs of his returned to my face, the matter settled.

"Take you to Bane."

My smile vanished and my brow furrowed at those words. Something inside me twisted into tight knots. I suddenly felt heavy. My face alone must've said a lot because Barsad continued, his voice serious.

"That bit in the dining room," he explained, "it proved that you're healed, that you're strong. We are to train you for combat every day like we have today, and in the meantime, Bane would like to talk."

A moment of silence passed between us like an unwelcomed phantom.

"Talk?" I echoed.

He nodded.

"Talk about what?" I pressed.

His throat cleared.

"His plans for you."

At that I rolled my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall behind me.

"What happened to being punished? What happened to him breaking me and blah blah blah?" I breathed.

"You gave him your name, remember?"

"So?"

"It must have swayed him otherwise."

A laugh left my mouth before I could stop it. I allowed my eyelids to close, tilting my head up towards the Heavens as if someone was going to finally answer my prayers and strike me dead. I waited. When nothing came, I sighed.

"That's stupid," I said dully. "He's just going to kill me."

Footsteps wandered nearer, the sound of boots becoming a second language to my soul. That's the one noise I could count on in this place, the droning of heavy soles pounding on cracked floor tile and cement. When my eyes reopened, I saw that Barsad was standing before me. I strained my neck to look at his face.

"Between you and me," he said in voice that was barely above a whisper, "I doubt it."

I shut my eyes again.

So badly I wanted to believe him. So much. So badly I wanted him to be right, and for things to not be as bad as they seemed.

"He needs you," Barsad continued. "He has plans to reshape Gotham."

I couldn't believe. I wanted to, but the faith never came in to me. It never does.

"Um, his plans include 'breaking' me, whatever the fuck that means. And I don't know how the hell I could help 'reshape' anything, let alone this fucking city. It's a lost cause."

"We'll see."

I said nothing. The way Barsad said those two words, it was strangely comforting. His voice grew soft, the phrase seemingly meant to soothe me rather than promise something unwelcomed.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw that Barsad was offering me his hand. I took it without hesitation.

"I guess," I agreed as I was pulled up to my feet.

The center consisted of four levels. The lowest level, the storage space where Barsad took me to spar, was humid, musty, and teeming with rats. I didn't like that place. There were too many shadows, too many hidden nooks and crannies, and in there I felt the constant paranoia lurking up my spine, the kind that says that one is not as alone as one believes. I knew I wouldn't miss the storage level as we trudged up the old steps to the level above. That level, level two, consisted of the main lobby, the cafeteria, and a few rooms that I hadn't been in. The rooms used to be where the people in rehab would have their daily classes, but Barsad informed me that they were turned into mercenaries' sleeping quarters. Where my room was, the third level, held general supplies and ammunition. I frowned at this, perturbed that I had been so close to a means to defend myself this whole time. Down the hall from where I slept was a way out. A violent way, but a way all the same. I added it to my mental list of possibilities.

We rounded a familiar corner of the third level only to stop in front of an old elevator shaft. My body almost collided into Barsad's who had stopped before the rustic opening. As far as I knew, the elevator was long gone, the electrical circuits dead and the paint on the doors chipped to a monstrous degree. Imagine my surprise then when Barsad clicked the button with an Up arrow on it and the old machine growled to life.

"I thought this thing was dead," I thought aloud.

Barsad chuckled.

"That was the point," he said.

I glowered as the door to the elevator slid open with a painful screech. The Serbian stepped through the doorway and into the car while I stood my ground in the hall. He gestured for me to follow his lead, but I shook my head.

"Don't be difficult," he warned.

"That thing's shit. I don't trust it."

His shoulders shrugged. I frowned.

"It is shit, but it works. Now, get in," he said.

"No. I'll take the stairs."

"There aren't any."

"That's the stupidest lie I've ever heard," I told him. "How could there not be stairs?"

"Bane blocked them," he answered me in a tired breath. His mouth then formed into a firm line, his lips pursing as I stared into the car.

"But of course," I muttered to myself.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Another sigh.

"Look, I wouldn't risk my life for you, so this elevator is safe since I'm riding in it as well. I wouldn't step in it if the story was that it would kill us, understand?" he informed me.

"That's a compelling argument," I said.

Barsad ran his hand through his brown hair, the frustration starting to roll off of his person.

"Come on. You are wasting time," he prodded.

My eyes met his and it was his turn to frown. My front teeth nibbled on my bottom lip, feeling the plump flesh as I was deciding to speak or not. Barsad's raised brow gave me the go ahead.

"You promise that he's not going to try to kill me?" I asked.

Part of me expected to be scolded or to see an eye roll or something that said my words were pathetic because I felt pathetic. I'm not used to having to trust people I haven't known for that long, especially those who worked for someone as dangerous as say a terrorist. As I stared into his eyes, I tried to search for any signs of him loathing me, or not caring for me at all. How pathetic that even in the strangers nearby I still look for a reason to trust them. The annoyance faded in those blue eyes of his. To my surprise I saw it dwindle into something unreadable. Barsad's brow furrowed as he slowly nodded his head at my question.

"I promise, devojčica."

The ride up the shaft was terrifying. Screeching, it sounded as if the elevator was crying in agony like it was alive, like the trip was a painful experience for it as well. I held myself as the old car shuddered with each passing inch, the movements jostling my body as my hands wrapped around my chilled arms. It was lit by a faint light above our heads, flickering about wildly until at last the car halted to a sudden stop. I exhaled loudly, not even caring how weak I must've sounded to Barsad who had been completely calm beside me.

It came to a halt and I swallowed. As the doors creaked open once more, I glanced at Barsad. With an open palm, he gestured me to step out into the level. I hesitated.

"Go on," he said quietly.

He flexed his hand again in the direction outside of the elevator, and this time I did as he asked. It led to a small dark lobby with a broken chair against one wall and some shattered glass and litter on a dusty floor. The air was cool, but a little musty. The only light came from the distant flickering of a broken overhead bulb. I squinted down the hall, trying to make something out of the flashing white light.

Then I heard creaking. My body spun around to see the elevator doors slowly closing, Barsad still in the car and as calm as ever. I, on the other hand, instantly began to panic.

"No!" I started to call out to him, my fingers extending towards the shutting metal, but to no avail. The doors shut before I could do a thing to stop them, and my heart sank to a new level of loss as I heard the old car slowly creep itself away from me.

For a while, I just stood there. My hand rested on the ice cold door of the elevator, my fingertips touching the frigid surface and feeling the small layer of chipped paint beneath them. My nails then scratched at it, but stopped when I felt the unpleasant sensation under my fingernails. I shuddered. I heard nothing for a moment, stuck to listen to only my fluttering heart beat and the uneasy breaths that left my mouth.

I was alone. I had no one to protect me, to steer me in the right direction. And in that moment, in that time of realization, something changed within me. I've gone to that place before, the place where I stuck to self-preservation, where I became a person bent on surviving. I go to that place often. It was a sanctuary within my own mind.

After a breath, I straightened up. I clinched my eyes shut and opened them with a new light of determination filling my vision. It flooded my mind with a ferocity that I've known forever, but perhaps too early for any child to have learned of. I was so young. My breathing steadied. My pulse slowed. I flexed my fingers. They popped. My neck popped when I tilted my head from side to side, preparing myself for whatever I was to face.

I was alone. There was no one to save me. I was all alone.

My feet carried me through the dark lobby and towards the faint, glimmering light. It was a disheartening beacon, like a rundown lighthouse on some distant shore and I a ship lost at sea. I moved towards it with little enthusiasm. I allowed not one ounce of fear to tickle my skin. As the light flickered, I thought only of the blade in my pocket, of how it was my last ditch effort should something threaten my life. I could feel it against my thigh, the lightweight of the metal resting against my leg as a sort of odd comfort.

I grew into a monster during that walk. A monster with teeth.

By the end of those long, tired steps I arrived at two double doors. The metal of these doors was unlike the old, worn things that filled the door frames of the abandoned rehab center. Those doors were peeling paint and rusting at the hinges. They creaked loudly when opened and screamed of the past. No, unlike those doors, these two were clearly new, their surface smooth and shining. I touched the cold metal, feeling that it was real and that they were firm, keeping out what was wanted out and keeping in what should remain.

"You may enter."

My jaw tightened at that voice instantly. It was unexpected. So deep. So heavy. The power in his voice moved through the heavy metal doors and to my ears, like water through thin fabric.

I pushed forward before I allowed fear to tickle my skin because I was no scared little girl but a monster, a monster with sharp teeth. Turning the knob, I entered with the confidence of a predator.

The first thing I noticed was how much warmer the inside of the room was. The heat hit me and I felt it. The large space with high ceilings and thick carpet held a cozy sort of warmth, a sense of comfort granted to us by places that we may consider familiar or home. On the barren walls danced the wisps of light from a small fire lit in the room's corner. It sat in a barrel, the fire, but the heat that waved off was enough to fill the whole area. The heat, that's at least what I picked up first as I closed the door behind me, allowing my attention to then be solely on the man standing so prominently at the foot of a large bed.

He was shirtless. That was the second thing I noticed. Bane just stood there without anything covering the top half of his body. Bare skinned. Tanned skin. Scarred skin spread across a broad chest and rippling anatomy. His arms were crossed and his body was tall, casting a deep black shadow that added to his ominous presence. As if he needed it. I studied every ridge of his shoulders and curve of his thick biceps, my eyes then wandering lower from his chest to his midsection. His body flexed with each audible breath, emphasizing even more the strength of such a man as Gotham's Reckoning.

A curt cough snapped me out of my visual reverie.

When my eyes held his for a fleeting moment, I sensed something odd. Something changed. Bane slowly tilted his head to the side, his dark eyes narrowing in the slightest as he looked me over. I said nothing and stood still, only squaring my shoulders as he returned the favor.

It felt like ages.

At last when his eyes left my body and bore into mine, he spoke in that dark voice of his.

"There is something different about you," said Bane.

It wasn't what I was expecting. Then again, why should I even bother expecting anything from such a person?

I took in a breath of the hot air.

"Is it my hair?" I asked, taking a step further into the large room.

The carpet was thick, red, and out of place. Too nice. Too clean. My footsteps didn't make a sound.

His back straightened, as did mine.

"What's different about me?" I pressed.

His brow furrowed at my question. My steps ceased. We were but a few feet away from one another. I could smell him. Sweat and a hint of men's deodorant. Fresh.

I allowed my lips to pull my face into a light smile. It felt natural. I don't know why because obviously I shouldn't have. I don't know why I smiled there. Small, but the gesture was enough to cause Bane to grimace, or, at least I could see the resentment filling his eyes as he continued to study me.

There. I could see it.

I was affecting him.

My smile then travelled to my own eyes. I don't know why, but I was starting to enjoy the way he was looking at me. His face relaxed, the lines smoothing. My eyes flickered away from his and held for the flames of the fire.

How funny. I was _suprising_ him.

No words left Bane, so I decided to get what I wanted. I am a monster with teeth after all.

"When do you intend to kill me?" I questioned.

The fire crackled in the background as I waited for an answer.

"It depends on how long your use will prove to benefit me," Bane said.

He took one step closer to me, his height coming back into play. My neck craned to look up at his masked face, memorizing the details of that intricate apparatus of his as it drawled out his deep breaths. Absent-mindedly, I realized that this was perhaps the fourth time that I stood so close to Gotham's most wanted criminal. I could touch him if I wanted to. Hell, I actually already did that. Touched him. His face. Yes, it was warm.

He glowered down at me as if he could read my thoughts. My smile faded.

It was then that I realized what he was doing. The fire. The shadows. Him, so close. Bane was trying to intimidate me, but I wasn't afraid anymore. Fear left me after day two.

We were on day twenty-four.

"I have something you want," I said.

He nodded.

"You do. Tell me," he began, "How well do you know this city?"

My brow furrowed.

"What?"

A sigh.

I smiled.

He glared.

"I know Gotham very well," I answered.

"And the people?"

"What about them?"

"Are you familiar with the local gangs? The dealers?"

I nodded.

"Very," I added.

Silence.

I did not waver my eyes as he bore down on me with the deep dark presence of his own. I didn't because Gotham City is a motherfucker when it comes to your fears, and if you have a weak bone in your body, you might live another day when it comes to situations like this, but in the end you need to take all you can get because a city like Gotham wasn't a place to be always so charitable to those without a little fight in their souls. You had to be able to stare Death in the face and love it. If you didn't, you wouldn't get anywhere. You'd be used instead of the user. I learned that lesson from multiple teachers, and I wasn't going to change my ways just because I was standing before Bane. I wasn't. I just couldn't.

"You aren't afraid of me, are you?"

His question was exactly what I was waiting to hear.

"Absolutely not."

"I could kill you. Right here."

"I know, but you won't."

There. It was there for but a single second, but I saw it. Humor. Amusement. It lit in his eyes but was eaten alive by his composure yet again.

"You are certainly confident in that statement," said Bane.

I leveled my chin.

The floor shook gently as the large man took one heavy step closer. The skin of his body grazed me. He was hot.

"But are you so certain?" his voice whispered as he planted his large hand on my shoulder.

The weight alone was something to think about. His fingertips flexed slightly as he held me still. Against my will, my heart rate increased and my breathing ceased, just for a second or two.

I ground my teeth before opening my mouth once more.

"If you wanted to kill me, then you would have taken care of that already, but as you have made perfectly clear you _need_ something from me to aid you in some way or another, and considering that you asked about my knowledge of this fair city and of the local gangs, then I can only assume that what you seek is my advice, knowledge, etcetera, and therefore won't kill me until you have it."

He was smiling. I could see it in how the skin around Bane's eyes crinkled. I continued.

"Ah, but you can torture me for the knowledge! Don't worry, I figured that out. I'm assuming that you're pretty big on not wasting time and would have gotten the information sooner via torture instead of letting me heal. But, since you have nursed me back to my health, I must deduce that whatever you want, you plan to keep me around until its finished, which in this case, will be a _long_ time because you have me sparring with your best man in that disgusting basement. You tested me with that fat man to see how strong I was, to _assess_ how much skill I had in combat, and after you gathered what you saw you decided that I need a bit more practice. You want to keep me around and by training me, you'll have the satisfaction that I will be able to handle myself."

When I finished, I crossed my arms and waited. I just waited. I didn't know what to expect, what his reaction would be. Most become angry when I see through them, but with Bane, I wasn't prepared for his next statement.

"Pompeii," he said. Clear. Concise.

The fire continued to crackle and the building ached out sounds from old age and old wear.

"Pompeii," I echoed.

He nodded his head slowly at my voice, his eyes narrowing in the slightest.

"I want to know everything you know of that place," he continued. "I want to know if you know how to get there."

My feet shifted as I stood before the man. He was still very close. I stopped moving because my subtle tottering caused me to graze his naked flesh again. Bane didn't seem to mind.

"It's old. And dangerous," I said quietly.

"Do you know how to get there?" he pressed. His tone was more stern that time.

"Of course I do," I snapped.

The lines around his slate eyes returned.

"Good. You will take me there tomorrow."

I frowned.

"You won't get that far. I can make it all the way, but you won't even reach half a mile."

At my words, Bane's eyes became ice cold. The grip on my shoulder tightened.

"Why is that, Adelie?"

My lips pursed. Oh yeah. My name.

"Because, Bane," I said, "People hate you."

His hand laxed. Back to smiling once more. I think I even heard him chuckle under his breath.

"I can only imagine that a few people do, Adelie. I am not surprised by that news one bit."

I sighed. Bane cocked his head to the side.

"Bothered?" he prodded.

I shot him an annoyed glance.

"No, I'm peachy."

"What is bothering you?"

"I don't like that place. That's all."

My eyes wandered to the fire again, to the glowing red and orange flames that burned in the corner. Pompeii, like the ancient, sorrowed island, was a lonesome place deep down below in the darkness of Gotham's underworld. Below the earth's crust, past the abandoned subway cars in the farther reaches of Lower Gotham, that is where Pompeii rested. Rapists, drug smugglers, escaped prisoners, refugees, and maybe the Devil himself wandered those black passages in the earth, and though I only ventured once, one time was enough.

There was only one reason someone would want to go to Pompeii, and that was because it was the only underground escape from Lower Gotham. There lies a tunnel that takes you a few miles into the City that isn't so ugly and poor, into the great big World. It's guarded by gangs and whoever wants to try and control it for God knows what, but it is there. It is the only way out if you don't want to get stopped by the police at the border of Higher and Lower Gotham City. It is the passage way to Eden.

"I know what is different," Bane stated.

I blinked my tired eyes, tearing them away from the fire and back to the eyes of the man before me. His face was impassive, but those green eyes of his studied me with such an intense gaze that I almost flinched upon meeting his stare.

"You've shown me who you really are."

I swallowed.

"Which is?" I asked.

A gleam in his eye. Not humor. Not amusement. Not anger. Not hate. Not anything that I had seen so far. No, it was something else, something that I could not place as I stood there.

Then he said the words that profoundly stirred within me the deepest unsettling feeling that I had ever felt.

"You're like me."

Bane quickly removed his hand from my shoulder and stalked away from me, leaving my body still as stone as his words continued to hit me like ocean waves. I watched him walk about the living space, undoing the hand brace that was strapped to his left hand. Bane then sat on the foot of the bed, the mattress squeaking at his weight. The laces of his boots began to be undone blindly by his fingers as Bane's eyes returned to my dumbstruck form. The amusement from before danced in them.

"I am done speaking with you. Tomorrow we shall depart for Pompeii," he told me.

When I said nothing, the humor weakened.

"I am looking forward to my time with you, but for now I would like my privacy. Go on, go rest. We have a big day ahead of us, Adelie."

I don't know what it was that turned me around, that pushed open the new metal doors, carried me through the hall with the spastic bulb, to the elevator door, that pushed the Down button. I don't know what force caused me to enter the car, push the button to my floor, step out when I arrived, walked me to my room, shut the door, take off my shoes and climb into bed. I don't know what miraculous thing closed my eyes that night. I don't know how I was able to sleep.

What I did know was that I was going to spend the next twenty-four hours with the most dangerous man alive in the closest thing to a worldly Hell.

And, that Bane was "looking forward" to it.


	8. Conversation

**Conversation**

When we close our eyes for sleep in the quiet hours of the living dead we become absolutely vulnerable. A bit obvious of a statement, but some of the truest truths are understated. Did you remember that? Did you? Or are you so used to the feeling of being out in the open that you have forgotten that the line between true rest and absolute susceptibility is so very blurred? I heard that the body becomes paralyzed when we sleep, that even to a biological level we are sitting ducks for anyone to eat us up right there in our cozy little beds.

I don't think that I've rested a day in my life since I was sixteen years old. I know how valuable true rest is. I haven't been allowed to shut both eyes safe at night for ten whole years, and believe me when I say that I am very tired because I mean it when I say that I am _very_ tired. What I do to get by in Gotham City calls for long night hours and barely any time to push in the Zzzs, so when I was told to go to sleep by one of Gotham's most dangerous men in its recorded history, believe me when I say that I wanted so badly to just do that. I wanted to shut my eye lids to the world and to whatever Hell that I allowed myself to fall into.

A small ridiculous part of my mind wanted to believe that everything that I had experienced thus far was a dream, a false reality created at the age of sixteen. I wanted so badly to believe that I didn't turn the door knob to the bathroom door next to my bedroom that long decade ago. If only I could go back and stop that stupid girl from reaching out her hand to that knob. I would trade that chance for all of Heaven's treasury.

The sleep was hardly beneficial. I probably rested for only a few hours, four tops, maybe four and a half if I want to remain optimistic. As I laid there on the old bed, my body was warm, but not in the good, well-rested warmth, but the kind of heat that begged you to lay down under the covers once more and to sleep for just five more minutes, just five, nothing extravagant, just five. Five little minutes were a dream, a fantastic wish that wouldn't be granted, not that morning. No, it would be a long while before I was going to get a good night's sleep.

The second I awoke I knew that I wasn't alone. His metallic breaths broke the silence as they always do. The scent of him, a blend of worn leather and smoke, flitted in the air of my small room. When my tired eyes found him he was blurry, but his tall silhouette gave him away. I instantly recognized who he was.

Drowsy-eyed, I sat up in my bed, my body heavy and my mind a static wave.

"Good. You're a light sleeper."

I couldn't tell if he was genuinely pleased or not. Smooth, his voice was like silk. Non-threatening soft silk, but I knew better. His tone hardly meant anything. It was his face, his dull green eyes. That was what gave him away. His tone meant nothing. I was beginning to realize that Bane's tone rarely gave anything away at all.

"Why's that good?" I asked, my own voice gruff.

Bane's eyes looked away from me and fell on the metal chair that he sat on the last time he was in my room when I threw up on him. I grimaced. The painful memory flooded my brain as he walked nearer to the seat as if he never had seen a chair before. I watched him extend his fingers to the metal back of the chair, running the calloused tips on the surface.

As my hands rubbed the remaining slumber from my eyes, I wondered what hour it was. The sun wasn't even up, the night painting my room an eerie blue color.

Looking at him just standing there by my feet, he appeared relaxed. Bane's posture was straight, but his shoulders weren't squared like they were when he was towering above me by the fire, when he was trying to force some fear into my bones. No, dressed in his usual apparel of multi-pocketed cargo pants, laced boots, military jacket and intricate metal mask, stood a tamer Bane. I blatantly looked him over, not caring that perhaps my own actions were considered impolite. I noted, however, that this time around Bane also wore a strappy vest covering the top half of his person, the material thick and tight around his frame. In his hand was a leather backpack and a smaller vest like his own.

"Do you enjoy staring at people?" he asked.

My eyes fell immediately to gaze at my hands resting in my lap. They suddenly became the most interesting thing in the room.

"Only when they ignore my questions," I replied.

Bane took a step closer. I stiffened.

"And why, Miss Adelie," he challenged, "must I cater to your questions?"

My head tilted to the side and I smiled lightly at his forwardness.

"My apologies then."

I glanced at him through my lashes. His head had tilted as well.

"You're apologizing?"

I dared to fully look up at him, my shoulders squaring.

"Yes, I thought we were having a conversation, conversation by definition meaning 'the informal exchange of ideas by spoken words.' Had I known that I would be flying this poor attempt at conversation solo, I wouldn't have bothered with the oxygen. So, I apologize for assuming that you were here to talk to me."

I slumped back against the metal headboard of my bed, observing Bane with my absolute full attention. The expression on Bane's face was unreadable. Blank eyes took me in and I could feel them studying me from my face to my hands. My lips pursed as he did so, and the creeping sense that I was in the wrong slowly made its presence known under my skin. After another moment of silence, my lips parted.

"You're angry with me," I stated.

He chuckled.

"I am not angry," said Bane.

I looked at his boots.

"My question was not intended to reprimand you," he added.

"Hard to tell," I mumbled.

"Pardon?"

I gaped up at him, up at the face of the deadly mercenary. There were no lines around his eyes. The flesh was smooth. I believed him. He wasn't lying. He didn't look angry at all.

A moment of silence.

"What are you doing then?" I asked.

He didn't say anything. Just stared.

I cleared my throat.

"What is it that you want from me?" I began asking as I looked into his eyes, not daring to blink. "What are you doing in my room at night? What do you need from me?"

There. I saw it once more. My words changed him. I saw it, the swift feeling that hit him like a wave to a sandy shore. For a moment, a new emotion spread across his face, across those deep eyes of his. His brow furrowed and his eyes widened in the slightest. I saw it. He didn't want me to, but it was far too late for him to cover it up.

Bane was confused.

My face displayed no emotion, but inwardly I was gawking. What was he doing striking up a pathetic example of a conversation with me at such an early hour like he was. It was hardly appropriate. I don't know why, but I expected more from him than to be in my presence like that. I wasn't wearing a bra under my shirt and beneath the sheets I was dressed only in underwear. The longer he remained silent, the more uncomfortable I was becoming with the whole situation.

"No, I don't like to," I blurted.

He blinked quickly, the new emotion gone and replaced with that cold seriousness that was growing familiar to me.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I don't like to stare."

I then shrugged, my eyes glancing down at my twiddling fingers.

"I was just looking at the vest, that's all," I added quietly.

His head gave a small nod before his eyes diverted to something else in the room. An odd silence fell between us once more as I gazed at the man, wondering what in the world was going on in his mind.

"What are you doing?" I dared to ask once more.

His eyes returned to my face.

"We are departing for Pompeii in half an hour. I came to rouse you."

It was hard, but I suppressed a smile. The man said "rouse." Who the hell uses that word?

"What time is it?" I said.

"Quarter until five."

I groaned and laid back down, shutting my eyes.

"That's ridiculous," I stated.

I heard him take a step. I stifled a shiver.

"What is?" he questioned.

I yawned.

"Leaving at such an hour. I want to sleep."

When I dared to look in his direction, Bane's eyes narrowed. Back was the ruthless professionalism.

"Sleep is a reward for those who work hard to earn it," he said darkly.

Before I could retaliate to his statement, Bane flung the vest and backpack on to my lap.

"Get dressed. Put on the vest and take the bag downstairs. I will be waiting."

He turned his face away from me as he began to leave. As he started to make his way out of the room, I felt that itch of inferiority scratch at my stomach. I do hate that feeling, the itch. It's hard to ignore. Bane was leaving and my lips parted to say the most dangerous words ever said to the most dangerous man alive.

"And if I refuse?" I asked. Clear. Concise. I knew he heard me.

That tall body froze and I found that my words once more elicited a change in the man known as Bane. This time though, the outcome was less pleasant for me. Instead of confusion, I faced something else.

Before I could do a thing about it, one of his hands grabbed my arm and yanked me from the mattress. I wasn't so much yanked as I was _lifted_ from the sheets, my body taken up so easily as if I were a toddler and he a giant. My wrists were then roughly raised over my head by his other hand. The next thing I felt was the cool wall of the room against my backside as Bane forced me against it, his body slightly touching mine. He towered over my frame as I was pressed there, too uncomfortably close in proximity to such a deadly fiend. I knew better than to fight him. His grip was tight, painful, and there was no point in trying to get him to let go. I stood there in my t-shirt and underwear barely on my toes before him, my chest heaving at the suddenness of his ferocity and how simple it was for him to take advantage of me. Like every encounter with Bane, I felt pathetically small. I wished then I could be smaller in that moment, small enough to evaporate.

"You are correct, Adelie," Bane stated. The tone in his voice was level with an edge of deadliness that held my attention even more than the grip on my wrists.

"You are correct in that I am not going to kill you," he said. "But I will _hurt_ you if you challenge me again. Do you understand?"

Despite how heavy I was breathing, the way my arms ached, and the chill that I felt on the back of my naked thighs, I glared at him with all the fire of my soul. I sent every wave of hate that I could through my eyes, hoping that somehow he could feel the burning nature of my hatred rolling off my body and on to his own.

I said nothing in response and that was enough. Satisfied, Bane let go of me. I stumbled on my feet and sat on the bed for support, my eyes still boring into his. A moment passed between us before Bane turned on his heels and headed towards the door. I glared at his back as he stalked out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him with a sharp slam.

"Asshole," I muttered to myself.

I grabbed the pillow behind me and threw it as hard as I could at the door. It shook violently, but no one came. My soul was still boiling inside me. I needed a release. My face became buried into the pile of sheets that gathered on my bed, my voice screaming as loud as I could into the firm mattress. I screamed three times. Three whole times I shrieked at the top of my lungs all alone in that room. It hurt. My screams ripped at my throat, but I kept screaming. It hurt. No one came. I screamed so loud.

Afterwards, I just laid there. I thought nothing. I felt nothing. Just laid there and took up space. My eyes glanced up at the vest. With rage I tossed it at the door, too. Next, my green eyes fell on the leather backpack. I sat up and took it in my hands, feeling the thick material and smelling the scent of real leather. The bag felt full. Curious, I dumped out all the contents on to the bed.

Canteen. Matches. Dehydrated meal packets. Thermal wear. Headlamp. Compass. Hand warmers. Climbing gloves. Hunting knife.

I stopped digging immediately when my hand felt the cold handle of the knife. Same weight. Same design. Same grip. Holly's knife. The one his dad gave him. Holly's knife. I stared at the thing, confused and filled with an overwhelming, heart-wrenching joy. I tossed the bag aside and with both hands cradled the blade, my hands moving over the familiar grip and my eyes treasuring the little markings that I knew so well. Tears stung at my eyes. Crazy, but they did. Words could barely describe the level of strange happiness that took over me for that moment upon holding Holly's old hunting knife, the one that I had that night at the harbor so long ago, the evening that turned my life for the worst.

As I flipped it in my hand, my mind wandered to Holly, Harris, and to the Bon Jour Brothers. I saw their faces. The mischievous grins of the Brothers. Harris's blue eyes rolling at a joke. Holly's focused expression as he typed away a code on his computer screen back at our apartment. I missed them. God, I missed them so much. I hoped that they were alright, that they were miles away from me. I wanted them to be safe and away from Bane. To be trapped with me at the center under Bane's watchful eyes would be a torture. I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone.

Eventually I dressed myself and headed downstairs. Other men had joined Bane at the base of the stairs, some I recognized, others I did not. He said nothing to me, barely regarded me with his eyes as we walked through hallways I never ventured down before.

Bane had me ride with him in a large black SUV to the drop site of Pompeii. The car appeared to be new, a characteristic that was most surprising as I expected them to possess something more humble. Appearances, I suppose, are always deceiving, and one would never expect that a rugged mercenary would own a five-star A Class vehicle. Bane sat in the back with me to much of my disdain as two of his men filled the front seats. I was pressed as close as possible to the car's door on my side, trying to insure as much space between Bane's body and mine. Bane himself didn't seem to mind, his own eyes focused straight ahead as we drove out from the center's garage and further into Lower Gotham. I was in awe that he was allowing me to see where the center was residing in the city, surprised even further that he had given me the knife.

"You are staring again," he said.

"That I am."

When his head turned to look at me, I saw that same light of interest spark in them for a fleeting second. If only I knew what caused such a thing, his interest.

I would snuff it out in a heartbeat.

"Tell me," he began lightly, "What is on your mind?"

I frowned.

"Who says something is on my mind?"

His broad shoulders lifted gently.

"Your eyes. They are still giving you away."

The way he answered me was so casual, as if Bane hadn't threatened to physically harm me an hour before. I heard him inhale.

"You have been in my care for over a month," Bane continued. "You have been enlisted to aid me and my cause without much privilege."

My jaw clenched. He noticed, his eyes flickering across my face as he continued.

"Also, you haven't seen your allies in some time. Most likely, they believe that you are deceased. Someone, Adelie, who goes through such a dramatic change _must_ have something on her mind. That much is for certain. I can only imagine that you are wondering what I propose to do with this dystopia. With you. You must be curious about what my intentions are," he stated so surely.

As my eyes narrowed at his words, at the easy way in which he said them I had that feeling again, that magical feeling that something was going to happen to me, another fork in the road. So, I followed my gut and decided to choose the truth of how I felt instead of honeying a lie. I did so gladly.

"I don't give a shit about what you intend to do," I answered Bane confidently.

He sighed.

"I doubt that."

"Well, I don't care about your doubts either."

I heard him shift in his seat.

"Say what you might," he admonished darkly, "but I know that there is more to your mind than that. If your mind was so hollow I wouldn't have bothered to pick you."

I turned and Bane instantly captured my gaze, the car suddenly feeling much, much smaller.

"You…You _picked_ me?" I asked him softly.

Our car began slowing until it stopped, but I didn't look away from those slate green eyes, nor did he break contact with me. The men in the front seat got out. I heard them moving and their doors slam, but Bane didn't stir an inch.

"It is alright to give in to your curiosity, Adelie," Bane said to me.

I think I was trembling. Inside my head, my thoughts were swimming wildly. I didn't know if he and I were even talking about the same things anymore.

"You know it warms my heart that I have your blessing, but I have come to realize that curiosity can be a bad thing," I said.

"Is that so?"

I nodded as I turned my attention once more to the world outside of the car window.

"Yep. Too much of it and you'll find yourself in some real trouble."

The street was littered with trash and crumbled debris. Heaps and heaps of crushed rock and plastic bags lined the black top in a mock form of organization.

I heard him take in a steady breath. I shut my eyes at the words he said to me.

"I agree," replied Bane quietly. "Curiosity certainly can change things."

We didn't say a word to one another as we stepped out of the car, shut the doors, and began trekking down the quiet neighborhood.

A hole. A bleak, black hole. That's what the opening to Pompeii looked like. The hole, a man hole, existed in what appeared to be a completely normal street. The neighborhood around it was near middle-class, and the only eerie thing about the street itself was that there was not a soul on the block. Then again that's what happens when a radioactive bomb detonates nearby over the salty ocean. People vanish and die somewhere in their homes like vermin. Some are lucky to wander off somewhere else. They're sick, but maybe they'll find some help.

The streets are empty. We are risking our very lives idly walking to the entrance to Pompeii. The earth is poisoned, cursed. Not one inhabitant remains, but the souls of three mercenaries and their prisoner are huddled around the seemingly harmless entryway to the sewers.

My throat felt dry as I gaped into the dark abyss. I had to clear it with what brave air I could muster, the rest of me too focused on what the next few hours were going to look like. Bleak, awkward, they weren't looking that great. I was to be stuck below the world's crust with the most devastating human being ever, one that I am pretty sure fell under the category of sociopathic and whose violence was well-known by most of Gotham's living populace. That was my fate, and all I could do was stand before a hole in the ground while my mouth felt dry.

"Here is where we begin," said the voice of Gotham's Reckoning directly behind me. I flinched and I tried my best to hide how much the hole unnerved me.

I said not a word to Bane's statement and he passed by me without a care, standing before the manhole with none of the fear that I was clearly struggling to control. When his eyes found mine, I looked down at the ground.

"Nothing to say?" he commented. "How unusual."

"What's there to say?" I said back.

I glanced up at his face, noting how that same shadow of lightheartedness was present once more. I couldn't tell if he was laughing with me or at my fears. Probably the latter. Either way, it wasn't going to make me feel any better.

"You will go down first, then I will follow. Turn on your headlamp when you reach the bottom," Bane said.

I nodded. My feet stepped nearer to the hole, my anxiety building. I don't know why I was so terrified. I mean, yeah, the whole being stuck underground with Bane thing made sense, but otherwise, the tunnels never scared me. Not the first few tunnels anyway.

"Stop wasting time," a dark voice warned.

My lungs expanded, taking in one last breath of fresh air before I descended into the world below. As my fingers curled around the old metal ladder, I could sense my skin start to tingle, the coldness of the underground world starting to already taste my flesh. Step by step I climbed down, the only light allotted to me a small circle above my head. I looked up, seeing how it was suddenly eclipsed by the large body of the mercenary, his dissension following my own by a few feet.

When my foot at last touched the hard floor, I did as I was told and clicked on the lamp on my head. The small light was weak, but thanks to it I was able to see a fat rat scuttle by. I frowned at this, but tried to swallow the bitterness of my situation.

A few moments later, Bane had joined me. He had no lamp on, which only added to how creepy the whole thing felt.

"Lead the way, Rabbit," he said beside me.

I frowned.

"Are the others coming with us?" I asked.

Bane stepped around me, his face looking on at the dark tunnel.

"They are not. We will travel alone."

I grimaced. Things could get worse after all.

"Lead the way," he pressed, gesturing his palm away from himself and towards the darkness.

I swallowed and obeyed, stepping around his frame to maneuver into the depths, into the Hell and close to the belly of the inner sanctum of Pompeii.

The first hour was straight walking. The beginning tunnel led to a metal door which led to the sewers. We ventured through them for a while before turning down another corridor and opening another metal door. This process repeated itself over and over and over again until at last we came across the passage that I was looking for.

The front of the chosen door was rusted orange and cracking around its edges. It stood out in this way, different than the other openings because of how worn down the face of the metal was, how used it was compared to the rest of the passages in the tunnel system.

My hand wrapped itself around the large, gritty handle. My gloved fingers flexed around the girth of it, feeling the rustic surface even through the material.

"Where does this lead us?" asked Bane. His deep voice echoed in the air around us. It was the first sentence he uttered since we last saw daylight.

"Pompeii," I answered plainly.

"I am aware of that," he stated.

"Good."

He sighed.

"What part of Pompeii?" he pressed.

My lips parted to answer, but nothing came out. I thought on.

"It's…hard to explain," I at last spoke.

"Try."

"I am!" I snapped. "Give me a sec!"

"We don't have time to give. We need to keep moving."

My body whipped around and shot him an angry look. I about had it.

"Like you have anywhere to go," I shot back.

The faint glow of my headlamp revealed his narrowed eyes, the bleak whiteness of the lamp reflecting beads of light off of the strange tubing of his mask.

"I do not wish to waste precious minutes," Bane said listlessly. "If what I have heard about this place is true, we still have miles of ground to cover."

Biting my lower lip, I nodded, my frustration building.

"And if I am correct," I started, "it is somewhere around seven in the morning. We have hours upon _hours_ to kill in Pompeii, not like you'd want to stay for that long anyway, so you can wait five little minutes. It's possible. I have faith in you. Or, or! We can spend ten minutes talking about five minutes! Your call. If you want to keep wasting _my_ time with _your_ complaining, we can do just that."

Without a warning, Bane took one heavy step towards me and proceeded to place his palm on my shoulder. I felt his fingers flex there, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

"Please do your best to remember our talk from earlier this morning," Bane warned. "I still can very much cause you harm."

The light from my head lamp touched his eyes and the metal mask as I slowly raised my eyes to meet his. I studied his face in an attempt to read him, his thoughts, how far I could push him. And he studied me in return.

"No you won't."

The words left my mouth without much thought. I swallowed after they dissipated in the air, waiting to see how Bane would respond to my continuing defiance.

The hand on my shoulder shifted and found my throat. I shivered at the contact and how Bane was suddenly holding me so close to him. My pulse pumped through me, the adrenaline racing through my veins. Surely he could feel it, the way my fear made itself known.

"You won't," I found myself rapidly repeating. "You won't kill me or hurt me."

I was lifted off the ground. Hot breath left my lungs in strangled, airy pants. His dark eyes bore into me.

"You don't know me," Bane stated coldly. "Don't make the mistake thinking that I will lessen my standards because you are a woman. No, I am not biased in any fashion, especially when it boils down to something as simple as gender. I am not going to go easy on you because of your sex or because of your status as a citizen in the lower levels of Gotham City. I will not, Miss Adelie. I won't-"

Before he could finish his speech, I had made my move. While Bane droned on, I had gently flicked my wrist and allowed Holly's knife to slip from my sleeve into my eagerly waiting palm. It was hard to hide it after I slid it in my sleeve in my room at the center, to make sure it wouldn't fall out of the sleeve in the car or as we walked towards the man-hole. Still, Bane seemed mighty surprised when I was able to swing up my hand and slice his arm. I was promptly let go as he staggered back to assess the damage that I had caused.

Then, he laughed. I froze at the sound, the loud joyous sound. His palm was covering his bleeding arm as his voice bounced off the tunnel walls. I was mystified. Bane was laughing.

"I was wondering when at last you would show your true colors, Adelie," he said in between chuckles. "I was beginning to think you a fool for not taking the opportunity already."

"Don't fuck with me," I said firmly as I crouched down into an offensive stance. His laughter faltered.

"Enough of that, Adelie. I have no intention of harming you," he stated.

"Fuck off!"

At that, his eyes darkened.

"Now, Adelie," he said, his tone scolding me, "Don't be so resistant. I gave you that knife. Don't be rude."

"What the fuck did you mean when you said that you 'picked' me?" I questioned, ignoring his previous words.

His shoulders shrugged and his brow furrowed. His laughter was gone and a thick silence was present in the tunnel.

"Just as it sounds," Bane answered. "I picked you. You have quite the reputation. Are you aware of that? True, you first found me at my storage unit at the harbor, but after our meeting I learned that you aren't so ordinary after all."

I flexed my wrist.

"There is nothing special about me. I'm just a thief trying to get by."

"That's not what my men say. I've been learning much about you, Adelie," he replied coolly.

I frowned.

"Like what?"

His eyes looked past me and at the door behind my person.

"We can discuss that matter as we move-"

"Why should I trust a word you say?" I countered. "What's in this whole fucking thing for me, huh?"

Bane took a step toward me, and though I flinched and mentally prepared myself for an attack, the man merely stepped around me and placed his large hand on the rustic handle of the tunnel door.

"You'll see," his deep voice answered.

The stare that held my attention was greater than anything around me. In his eyes I did not see anger a tactic to scare me. I saw something that I couldn't recognize. I tried to read his mind as the door to Pompeii loudly creaked open, and the cold foul air of the other side filled my lungs.

"I promise you will see."


End file.
